Worth Possessing
by IronAmerica
Summary: Telling Fleming or Chess they can't have something is like telling the tide to stop coming in. An opportunity to possess the Cape is something neither of them will give up easily-even if said vigilante is fighting back every step of the way.
1. Waves Crash Down Inside

Hey, it's a new story! Peter deals with Chess, who's perverted; Vince has to deal with a violent gang war. What could _possibly_ go wrong?

Un-beta'ed, go quibble away.

- o – o -

"Worth Possessing"

Chapter one: Waves Crash Down Inside

Peter Fleming, richest man in Palm City and de facto ruler of the city itself, sat in his office, staring out one of the massive floor-to-ceiling glass windows. The sun had long since set, turning the sky a dusky purplish-blue. Any darkness that might have settled over the city, however, was ruined by the neon lights of the city below. It was almost midnight, Peter was sure, but that didn't mean the city was going to stop. New York City might have been called the City that Never Sleeps, but Palm City was the best contender for that title.

_You're rather maudlin this evening_.

The billionaire sighed and rubbed his temple. Of course his contemplation of the city he practically owned would be interrupted. Only Chess would have dared interrupt him while he was thinking. (That was part of Peter's problem with his alter-ego's presence, along with the constant insults to his intelligence.)

_If you didn't make it _so_ easy, Peter…_ Chess said, trailing off with a suggestive note in his voice.

"Hush you," Peter replied, standing up. He shoved his hands into his pockets and began pacing around his office. The billionaire was quite sure anyone in the security office who monitored his home and office thought he was insane. That wasn't such a bad thing, though—most brilliant men were insane, or at least regarded as such.

_I think you need the Cape to come 'round to deflate your ego_.

"Quiet," Peter murmured, wishing—not for the first time—that Chess were a separate entity he could strangle. It would be _so_ therapeutic… Of course, if he ever informed his psychiatrist of that, Samuels would force half a dozen different drugs down his throat. (That also implied that the psychiatrist knew Chess hadn't taken kindly to Samuels' promise not being fulfilled in a timely manner. A month and a half was a long time to wait for an entity like Chess.)

_Damn straight, Peter!_

If Chess got any more coarse, he'd end up sounding like Scales, Peter thought. He'd already dealt with the idiotic reptile, and it wasn't looking like the man was getting out of prison any time soon. All he needed to do was make sure the smuggler's lawyers couldn't reach him—even suspending Scales' funds would do that—and the man would hang himself in court. Or do it literally…

_There's no need to be insulting_, Chess huffed indignantly. _I am _nothing_ like that moronic lizard. Idiot couldn't even think up a decent plot if you gave him the Evil Overlord List._

There were some days when Peter _really_ didn't want to know what Chess got up to when he was in the driver's seat. This was one of those times.

_Spoilsport_.

Peter rubbed his eyes wearily as the menace disappeared back to whatever hole he spent his time in when he wasn't bothering Peter or wreaking havoc in the world. Some days…

The billionaire padded out of his office, still mulling over the problems he faced. Chess was back, of course. What else could go wrong?

- o – o -

Peter discovered just what could go wrong the next morning. A new set of gangsters had moved into Palm City sometime in the past two weeks. There was now out and out warfare on the docks. Michael "Kazzie" Kaczanowiczk was refusing to let them take over his boss' turf. Poker Face had allied himself with Kazzie, as had Johnny the Bull and his crew of leg breakers and enforcers-for-hire. Li'l Z had, in a startling show of actual intelligence, announced that he was remaining neutral in the conflict. There was even a quote in the paper.

The body count was now around fifty. Six of them were civilians. Four of the civilians had been children. Kazzie had supplied every single one of Johnny the Bull's men with heavy artillery in response. The body count was expected to rise significantly in the next few weeks, and there wasn't any sign of a denouement at any point. The article closed with the fervent wish for Scales to make it out of prison, quickly. While the smuggler had been a psychopath, there had been no denying that he was the most stabilizing influence in the Palm City underworld.

_Well, that's just fucked up_, Chess commented as Peter finished the article.

Fleming nodded, sipping his coffee with a look of utter loathing on his face. He'd planned the reptile's removal _so_ carefully, just so he could get his hands on the docks, a good chunk of the underworld, and just to get rid of the smuggler. And now…

_Where the hell is the Cape when we need him?_ Chess grumbled.

"This is intolerable," Peter murmured under his breath. Really, he'd wanted Voyt out of the way and a scapegoat to pin the crime on. Was it too much to ask for a little peace and quiet?

_Yes_.

"Shut up," Peter grumbled sullenly into his mug. One of these days, he was going to invest in a Bluetooth headset, and then figure out how to make sure it looked like it was always operational. Except then he would look like one of the Cybermen, and he'd much rather look like the Doctor.

_Fanboy_, Chess said teasingly. Both of them liked Doctor Who. Aside from their mutual infatuation with the Cape, it was the only thing they could really agree on. Jamie, his—_their_, Peter amended morosely—daughter was one of the things they had never agreed on. Chess had wanted to train her to be a world-class assassin or mass-murderer, like himself. Peter would much rather have preferred a prima ballerina or a dancer.

_Stop reminiscing, idiot, and figure out how you're going to deal with the morons currently destroying _our_ city._ Chess was being unusually blunt. At least he hadn't… _Or I'll just hunt them down and shoot every single one of them. A nice execution is just what we need to cement our power_. Ah. There was the kill 'em all attitude Peter had gotten so used to over the past decade or so.

_Shut up and start planning_.

Peter sighed into his mug of coffee and began making notes on his Blackberry. He obviously wanted Kaczanowiczk to stop selling armament to everyone and their dog. (Peter would need to make sure the man only sold to ARK, then.) Chess wanted the heads of the men who'd started the mess on silver platters. (Fleming would settle for a nice execution, quietly arranged through proxies, of course.) And Chess wanted the Cape naked and tied to their bed. (So did Peter, but he had to stick to reality, sadly.)

The billionaire continued working even as one of the servants cleared away the breakfast dishes and put a new carafe of coffee within easy reach. By the time business hours rolled around, Fleming had gone through three carafes and had filled nearly fifteen pages in the notebook. His number one priority was acquiring Scales' empire. That included any homes and holdings the man might have been hiding away.

Peter Fleming was a man who got what he wanted. And when he had enemies or people standing in the way of something he wanted, he made sure they had nothing and no one to fall back to.

He was going to destroy Scales and the new criminal menace utterly and completely.

And even the Cape wasn't going to stop him.

- o – o -

Oddly enough, two people on the other side of Palm City were having roughly the same thoughts. One was a vigilante who should have been dead; the other was a hacker with serious daddy issues (among others). Vince Faraday, better known as the Cape, was preparing for doomsday. He had one serious problem.

He was out of coffee, and his partner was going to wake up in about five seconds, demanding a cup of the black gold. Vince was rather afraid of what would happen to him if he didn't have any. (Hell, he was even out of instant.)

In the scheme of things, being out of coffee wasn't as important as trying to keep a city from tearing itself apart, but this wasn't the rest of the world with the usual scheme. This was the Cape's headquarters. And they were out of coffee. Again.

Vince sighed and flopped back on his bed, rubbing his eyes wearily. He'd been up for nearly three days straight now, trying to keep the gangs from killing everyone they came across. Oddly enough, he'd been receiving aid from the Longshoremen's Union, and help from the drug smugglers. (The vigilante was sure he should be more worried by the Longshoremen helping him. It proved that Scales was still running his operation from prison; Orwell had even verified it—Mrs. Kaczanowiczk, Kazzie's wife, visited Scales every week, for an hour. It was obvious what she was doing, because no one was _that_ dedicated to bringing food to someone like Scales just for the pleasure of the man's company.)

"Vince," Orwell muttered into her pillow, blinking sleep out of her eyes.

Vince looked up, eyes widening a little. Damn.

"There had better be coffee…"

The vigilante sighed and jumped down from his bed. He'd been hoping for just a little more time to contemplate all the ways Orwell could kill him with her brain, or at least to formulate an escape plan. Wasn't going to happen, though; she'd woken up. She wanted coffee.

"I'll…go get some," Vince muttered, grabbing his duffel bag and coat. The duffel was a necessity, seeing as it had his costume and—more importantly—his amazing bulletproof magic cape. The coat was a necessity because it was too fucking cold, even for March.

"Good," Orwell muttered.

Vince couldn't help but feel an uncomfortable shiver pass down his spine. He had the horrible feeling that something was about to go very wrong, and it wasn't connected to the dead people from the past few weeks.

- o – o -

So, it's a new story! What did you think? Good? Bad? Is Vince going to be in trouble? Drop a line and let me know!

A side note for those who don't like slash, even if it's one-sided: Wait until either chapter three or four for the rest of the cast to come in. Chess is a pervert. What can I say?

A second note: I have just started college. Do not ask me for an update schedule at this time, and please don't expect regular updates. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

-IA


	2. A Pawn of the Excuse

Hey, it's a new chapter! Chess is scary. Do not mess with his toys.

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Chapter Two: A Pawn of the Excuse

It was a good thing that Peter had learned the value of patience. He had Chess to thank for that particular virtue, not that he would admit it. Three days was not enough time for results to appear, even if he _was _Peter Fleming. He'd learned that childish displays of temper never got anything done; if he wanted something, he had to be patient and wait for his plan to begin working.

Three days was not enough time to get rid of the maniacs who enjoyed killing people who got in their way. In a way, the senseless violence and killings almost made Fleming wish for Scales to be back on the streets. At least _that_ particular maniac hadn't felt the need to shoot people for looking at him funny. It usually took quite a bit longer to get under the reptile's skin…

_You are really pathetic before you have your coffee, you know_, Chess butted in conversationally. _And, of course, if I ever hear you reminiscing about how much you miss Scales again, I'll hurt you. Badly._

Peter sighed and rubbed his temples wearily. There was truly no way to keep anything secret in his own mind, not with Chess being an ever present part of his psyche. To distract himself from thoughts of how to excise Chess permanently—something even Samuels hadn't managed to do, even with his promises of…_something_—the billionaire began sorting through the correspondence that Charles had decided merited his personal attention.

There were several invitations to various functions around the city—including one from the mayor, which Fleming discarded immediately. He had no desire to spend any time with the moron that had been elected to lead the city than was strictly necessary for his business. Fleming might have been a criminal mastermind, and he shared his head with a psychopathic criminal murderer, but he _did_ have standards. Allowing corruption to run rampant was not one of them. A little bit, yes, but as much as the mayor had? Absolutely not. It was…obscene, almost.

_I have to agree with you there. By the way…_

Peter tried hard not to roll his eyes. _Tried_ being the operative word—it was impossible to ignore Chess.

_Cute, Peter. But I was going to ask if you'd noticed the…_lack_ of a certain caped nuisance?_

The billionaire paused. He _had_ noticed the absence of the city's favorite, if not exactly legal, son. The Cape was quite popular in Palm City, if only because it was the kind of pick-up that the citizens needed. Unfortunately, the necessity of putting out an arrest warrant for the masked vigilante had turned a good number of potential employees and informants _against_ ARK Corporation. Ah well. There were _always_ more where they came from.

The Cape being missing, though, was worrisome. Not that Peter _wanted_ the vigilante gone or anything. He did, but he'd rather be the one to cause the disappearance. Chess was also interested in being the one to cause the disappearance. Or, sad as it might turn out, horribly maim, destroy and/or kill whoever had destroyed _their_ vigilante.

_Have you noticed just how protective we're getting of the Cape, or is it just me?_ Chess asked as Peter headed out of his bedroom, tying the sash of his bathrobe just a bit tighter around his waist. Both men gave a mental hiss as their feet came in contact with the cold tile in the penthouse's private office. The billionaire mentally berated himself for forgetting slippers, helped along with some rather unhelpful comments from Chess.

Half an hour later, Fleming had set his…less than savory contacts to finding the Cape. Given the reactions he'd had from them, the picture wasn't too rosy. If he _did_ find the vigilante, Fleming was sure that the man wasn't going to be in very good shape, if he was even still alive. He sighed.

_Well, you _are_ the one who said he wanted the vigilante no matter what_, Chess murmured. _And let's look at it this way, shall we? If he's damaged, there's a very good chance you might convince him to get into our bed after you fix him up. Think about that._

Fleming's personal staff was used to their boss and his rather…_odd_ personality quirks. Thus, they said absolutely nothing when he gave a short burst of laughter. He'd probably just remembered something funny. They filed it away under "things we just don't ask about anymore" and went back to work.

Everything was back to normal by the time Fleming headed down three levels to his corporate office on the forty-seventh floor. Despite some of the assumptions made about him in the tabloids, Fleming actually _did_ do quite a bit of work for his company. The paperwork, for one thing; for another, he had quite a few patents to his name. This morning, however, it was paperwork. (The billionaire would have much preferred figuring out just what his competitors were doing, and then rework it to make it…better. Unfortunately, there was paperwork to do instead.)

The man sighed as he signed off on another ridiculous piece of minutiae. There were only so many times he could sign off on approval for Stoykova to continue working in the United States (or any English-speaking country that ARK Corporation had a branch in) when the man had an accent thicker than cement and was a Person of Interest where Interpol was concerned. On the other hand, he was sure he'd need another scapegoat where Chess was concerned. What better sacrificial goat than someone who was already under suspicion in his home country? (Interpol suspected him of assassinating a local politician, but they couldn't prove anything.)

_Of course, we can't actually get rid of the man, seeing as he's quite devious when it comes to keeping the assassins from killing you. You realize he's stopped more of them than your actual security team has?_ Chess pointed out in a thoroughly unhelpful manner. The psychopath had the nasty habit of pointing out the obvious in unwanted situations. Chess was, as far as Peter knew, his subconscious; everything was at a simpler, more straight-forward level in the subconscious. What that said about his attraction to the Cape and Orwell over his own wife (dead though she was) bothered Fleming.

_And you've thankfully stopped imagining Orwell in your bed_, Chess grumbled. Fleming had to wonder what his murderous subconscious had discovered about the hacker. Obviously it was bad enough that Chess wouldn't give up the man's identity, even in exchange for time in the driver's seat. (Peter had offered up to six months the last time he'd tried finagling the blogger's identity out of his alter-ego. He'd gotten a threat involving a knife and certain parts of his anatomy in return. The attempts had stopped after that one.)

"Why is that _so_ important to you?" Peter murmured, barely moving his lips as he signed off on the new quarterly budget. Running Palm City was taking up quite a bit of money, but the profit margins were still far in excess of the police force's total budget. He still had quite a bit of overhead, and he could always sink his personal capital—or at least a portion of it—into the working capital for the company if solvency was needed to keep it afloat. His accounting and finance professor would be horrified.

His cell phone buzzed, interrupting his train of thought. Peter growled something obscene under his breath before accepting the call. "Yes?" he snapped tersely, trying to quell his annoyance and Chess at the same time. And Samuels wondered why his blood pressure was so high these days…

"Well fuck me," Peter muttered, hanging up. He'd only put out the feelers for information on the Cape's whereabouts four hours ago. Maybe his lack of patience was beginning to affect the rest of Palm City. They _were_ producing results faster… Nah. Wasn't possible.

Charles was waiting by the elevator with a thick wool overcoat. "Shall I cancel your meetings for the rest of the day, sir?" he asked, tone mild as he helped his employer into the coat. Despite the fact that the weather was supposed to be warming up in early spring, it was still cold enough to necessitate much warmer clothing than spring usually called for.

"Thank you, Charles," Fleming replied. "And have the medical suite downstairs set up to receive someone. I have the feeling it will be needed," he added cryptically as the elevator doors slid shut. Charles nodded just before Fleming disappeared from sight, and sighed.

Some days, his employer worried him…

- o – o -

Chess liked being in the driver's seat. He liked it a lot. Unfortunately, Peter dearest had never trusted him enough to let him be in the seat for very long, if he was ever let out. Still, Chess made use of the time he _did_ get. It was fun. In this case, though, Peter was letting him out to play with some other criminal thugs. The Cape was at stake, of course. Peter knew he wasn't good enough to take on half a dozen thugs by himself (he was too…_soft_), but Chess was. Chess _liked_ killing. He liked blood.

He _wanted_ the Cape.

The criminal mastermind stared up at the dilapidated warehouse, a sneer curling his lip. At least Scales, much as Chess hated to admit it, had enough pride to keep appearances around his turf neat and tidy. Alright, so he was a bit picky about how things looked. He'd killed people for calling him prissy before. That being said, he wasn't exactly unhappy with how out-of-the-way the whole place was. It made it easier to hide the bodies, and people in areas like these were _far_ less likely to call the police. (This being Palm City, they were more likely to call on one of the local gang enforcers to see if the screaming was from a sanctioned attack or not.)

Chess paused as one of the lackeys this new threat surrounded himself with let him into the warehouse. He ignored the various offers being made to make him more comfortable, breaking one man's wrist just to get them to leave him alone. Peter's bodyguards shifted nervously. Of course, dear Peter had selected these particular hulking thugs for their ability to keep their mouths shut; _not_ their brains.

The criminal sighed and considered letting Peter "wake up" at that moment. Unfortunately, he was too invested in dear Peter's safety and security to do that. And anyways, he was here to find out what these morons knew about _his_ vigilante. He didn't really care about people dying, as long as the Cape was still out there being a menace to him and Peter. Peter was so much more interesting when he was engaged in a Cape-related problem (although he still refused to admit that he found the vigilante attractive. Dear Tracey, that bitch, was probably responsible…).

"Mr.…Chess, I presume?"

Chess looked up, fighting the urge to sneer or make a pithy comment. He had a feeling that it'd get him shot. Getting shot would put a _serious_ crimp in his plans for the day, and Peter would never let him drive again if he had to wake up in the hospital for gang war-related injuries. (Well, _never_ was a strong word, but it was possible.)

"Of course you are, how stupid of me," the man murmured. "Have a seat, please. No need to stand on ceremony here." He smiled, showing off an awful lot of white teeth. He looked vaguely European, although his eyes and accent didn't match up. Probably Asian somewhere, Chess decided. Not enough to make a difference, but enough to make him interesting to watch.

"_No thank you_," Chess replied, doing his level best to stay civil. He _hated_ politicking and talking. There was a reason Peter had him handle the more distasteful aspects of running a multi-billion dollar enterprise that had some…_questionable_ dealings. Chess was, in essence, a sociopathic five-year-old who couldn't sit still no matter how hard he tried or what he was bribed with. He was a very good troubleshooter, but not a very good politician.

"Suit yourself," the man said. "I forgot to introduce myself! I'm Andrew. At the moment, it'll suffice. Just like 'Chess' suits you. Never figured out why some old-timers are so hokey…" Andrew muttered under his breath, just quietly enough that Chess couldn't be sure he'd heard the comment correctly. But even a dearth of evidence wasn't going to stop him from breaking Andy's kneecaps for calling him a hokey old-timer. He was a classic, damn it!

"_Where is the Cape?_" Chess growled, cutting through the layers of polite conversation he'd have been forced to endure otherwise. If this brat had captured the Cape, he was fully willing to offer up just about _anything_ Andy asked for if he could possess the vigilante. (It helped that Peter had given him carte blanche to do just that, even.)

"Oh. Of course you'd be interested in him," Andrew muttered sullenly. He stood up and led Chess through a door in the back of the room. Chess decided that, for someone who didn't like "hokey old-timers", Andy seemed to be gagging for approval. God. How pathetic.

"_How did you capture him, anyways?_" Chess asked conversationally as Andrew played with an electronic lock. At least the brat had enough brains to keep the vigilante locked up in something _slightly_ more escape proof than a shipping container or a restaurant's main dining room. Or, for that matter, Peter dearest's penthouse. Explaining _that_ bit of reconstruction had made Chess glad he wasn't the primary driver.

What he saw inside the room, though, made his blood freeze. Chess might not have many standards, and he really didn't care about gun control or aiding the innocent, but this… No. _This_ was going _too_ far. His hands curled into fists, and he was rather grateful that Andy-boy's security had never heard of a pat down search. He still had his lovely straight razors, and they were just _dying_ to meet Andy's neck.

The Cape was hanging from the ceiling, suspended from a meat hook. The handcuffs around his wrists were cutting in deep enough that blood was running down his arms. Judging by the dark stain underneath him, it wasn't the vigilante's only injury. The only article of clothing the vigilante had on was his mask. As injured as the Cape was, it would only be too easy to remove his mask… Unfortunately, Peter had this unfounded romantic notion that Cape would willingly unmask to kiss him—much like the tale of Cupid and Psyche, if he wasn't mixing his myths up. (It was a disturbing, although somewhat welcome, dream that Chess occasionally indulged in as well.) Everything else was folded neatly on a surgical table, alongside some rather wicked looking medical tools.

Chess turned to Andrew, an evil smile on his face.

"_Andy-boy_," he said in a sing-song voice as he pulled his straight razor out, "_that is _my_ vigilante._"

Andrew screamed.

- o – o -

So, it's a new chapter? What do you think? Good? Bad? Think Chess' vigilante should be left alone? Drop a line and let me know?

Also, I have a raging headache that appears intermittently, and my wifi keeps going out. Anyone who flames me is going to get hit with an ACME mallet.


	3. Stranger in a Strange Land

Hey, it's a new chapter! Chess is an evil manipulative bastard. So is Peter.

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Chapter Three: Stranger in a Strange Land

Vince hated waking up in strange places. He never knew what he was supposed to expect. Generally, it meant that he'd gotten in the way of an IED or his vest hadn't _quite_ protected him from a bullet while on patrol in Palm City. (Dana had been pissed off when he'd gotten shot while on a routine patrol. He'd survived friendly fire in worse conditions than the Middle East, only to wind up in the hospital with a gunshot wound to his left shoulder after a routine patrol in the supposedly safe streets of Palm City's business district.) These days, he usually woke up in Max's trailer or his cave, nursing a headache and staring up at the IV Orwell had appropriated from a hospital. She swore she'd taken it to see if a caffeine IV line was possible, but Vince knew better.

So, waking up in a hospital was not at the top of his list of things to do. Waking up in restraints—soft ones, just tight enough to keep him there, but not tight enough to cut off circulation, oddly—was even worse. The only person who'd ever done something like this was Dana, and that had been reserved for Father's Day when she cheated mercilessly to bring him breakfast in bed. And she'd used ties, and only on his wrists. There was a strap across his chest and shoulders, around his wrists, and around his ankles.

_Shit_, Vince thought. This was just not a good thing. _More importantly_, his train of thought continued, _why can't you remember the last three or so days, and why in _hell_ are you practically naked? Dear god, did you get _drunk_? _That was not a comforting prospect in the least and his subconscious wasn't exactly pulling punches. It did have some points, though.

What _had_ he been up to, and where were his clothes?

The vigilante groaned and thumped his head back against the surprisingly soft pillows when he saw who was next to his bed. Peter Fleming was slumped over in a non-hospital issue chair, sleeping. There was a folder open on his lap, and someone had draped a blanket around the billionaire's shoulders. Said mysterious person had even thoughtfully placed a pillow between Fleming's cheek and his shoulder, most likely to save him from one hell of a cramp.

Vince hated whoever had done that. And he wanted his pants back at least. With that thought finally registering, the vigilante began jerking around in his restraints. He froze when Fleming mumbled something, and relaxed again when he felt the leather mask pull away from his face a little. Thank god he still had his mask on…

But where the hell was he? And why couldn't he remember the last three days?

- o – o -

Peter Fleming eyed the carnage around him, making a mental note to keep Chess out of the driver's seat for a few days. His homicidal alter ego, it seemed, had found his idea of fun. Fleming wasn't sure if he could identify all of Chess's victims, given five days and a set of instructions for a jigsaw puzzle of body parts. He sighed. At least he knew _why_ his second personality had reacted so…strongly. The reason was on the sofa Chess had vacated almost an hour ago to examine the back room with Andrew.

Andrew was now a bloody corpse. His head was tacked to a wall.

Andrew's victim, the Cape, was an unconscious and bloody mess on the sofa. His clothing, minus the mask and his boxers, were being neatly folded into a garment bag by Charles. If Fleming's assistant was uneasy about being at the scene of a crime (which his employer had, technically, committed), he showed no sign of it. He had a ridiculously high salary for a reason, after all.

Fleming turned his attention back to the Cape. The younger man's chest was rising and falling raggedly, although he _was_ breathing. That was the important thing. He was still alive; that was all Chess and Peter cared about. The billionaire sighed, rubbing his temples. Just _what_ was he going to do with a half-dead vigilante and a warehouse full of bodies and heads on pikes?

_Burn the fucker down_, Chess replied, cutting in on Peter's train of thought. _It's not like the gangs will question it. They're too busy fighting. And…I think I actually agree with you about Scales and his influence. How revolting. You'll have me spewing my guts and _feelings_ to that headshrinker of yours soon. Shoot me before that happens, Peter. Please?_

The billionaire had to hide a smile in his hands. It was almost cute, how his homicidal alter ego whined. He'd never admit it out loud, but it _was_. Fleming sighed, realizing he was treading a dangerous train of thought. (Last time he'd done something similar, he'd had to explain to his doctor—not Samuels—how he'd managed to smash his fingers in a door hard enough to break all of them. Including his thumb.)

"Mr. Fleming?"

Peter looked up. Charles was standing in front of him, a garment bag folded neatly over one arm. "Yes, Mr. Holt?" he asked, standing up. He was a little taller than the other man, but only barely.

"Your car is here sir, and your lawyer is waiting at the hospital." Charles looked down at the unconscious vigilante, one eyebrow raised. "And the ambulance is here as well. The appropriate compensation—" he meant bribe, of course, "—has been arranged and deposited. If you'd return to the town car, we can move the…vigilante."

Charles had a rather distasteful look on his face as he mentioned the Cape. Given that the man was a stickler for order and everything going according to a set schedule and plan, it wasn't hard to guess why. The Cape was excellent at causing chaos, even just by being mentioned. Charles _hated_ chaos; it stood to reason that he'd hate the Cape, at least peripherally.

Fleming made no mention of his thoughts to his personal assistant. The man did the job he was paid to do, and he kept his mouth shut. That was that, as far as the billionaire was concerned. He left the warehouse, changing into a more appropriate suit jacket instead of Chess' favorite red leather monstrosity of a coat. Despite how poorly the reveal had gone over, more than one local rag of a paper had begun voicing comments about him being connected to Chess after that evening. None of them were even close, but he couldn't very well get them to stop entirely. Freedom of the press, and all that. And they were locally-run papers, so it was only a matter of time before an…accident befell them.

The ride to the hospital was taken in silence. Fleming was too busy doing paperwork for his company anyways. Contrary to public opinion, he actually _did_ have more work to do than just attending press conferences and hosting charity functions. Paperwork was one of the banes of his existence at this point, honestly. Still, some of this paperwork was going to be fun, though… He had no idea why Chess had insisted he get divorce paperwork from Judge Preston, but had a feeling it was going to pan out well. (He was just a little afraid of the results, honestly. And he did hope that Preston, that drunk, could keep her mouth shut for a reasonable amount of time.)

Peter waited in the anteroom for almost three hours, going through the minutiae of running a company as large as ARK and hating every minute of it. The team of surgeons he employed at this private clinic were among some of the best in the world, but even they couldn't perform miracles at the drop of a hat—even with what he paid them, on top of the compensation to keep their mouths shut where the press was concerned. He was relieved, then, when _his_ vigilante was moved into a private recovery room. The leader of the team informed him that it'd be a few hours before the drugs wore off.

Fleming smiled and headed for the room where the vigilante was being held. As much as he hated to admit it, the billionaire doubted he'd be able to take the younger man on in a fight, even if the Cape was drugged and recovering from…at least two days of torture, maybe more. The restraints were annoyingly comforting in regards to that.

_I don't know, Peter_, Chess mused, _I think he looks pretty cute lying there. All vulnerable and tied up and—_

"And if you continue that train of thought, I'll bury you in a hole so deep you'll never get out," Peter murmured. His aid had so thoughtfully provided him with a mug of tea that he could use to hide his speaking with. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought Charles knew about Chess being a second personality, and not merely an odd—and somewhat insane—side hobby his employer had. "I may have low standards, but they still exist."

_Spoilsport_, Chess grumbled. _Can't you at least take his mask off?_

And so it went until Peter finally fell asleep from a combination of fatigue left over from Chess' rampage, the paperwork, and the argument. He'd found out how Chess had intended for the vigilante to sign the papers—put the younger man in enough pain that he couldn't identify his surroundings, then convince him to sign forms that permitted the doctors to treat him. (Alright, in the interests of fairness, the vigilante had signed those too. The doctors worked for him, but they still had to respect medical laws, pesky as they were.)

The most surprising thing, for Peter at least, was the name the Cape had used to sign the papers.

Vincent Gregory Faraday II, after all, was supposed to be dead.

- o – o -

Dana Faraday was, if not happy, at least accustomed to how her life worked. Sure, she was friendly with a vigilante and was hiding the family of one of the most wanted (and deadest) men in Palm City, but it was what she was used to. Since her husband had died almost a year ago, life had settled into some sort of routine, even if it involved making coffee for the reporters that occasionally sat outside her apartment. (Dana was pretty sure the reporters in question were testing the perfectly normal black coffee for rat poison or other unwanted additives. It amused the public defender to see them panic when she brought them Styrofoam mugs of coffee, fresh from the pot.)

Obviously, reading the headlines announcing that her husband was—somehow—alive did not make her happy. It was not what she was accustomed to. It did not fit in with her routine. More importantly, she was going to find the reporter in the byline and strangle him with his own testicles for writing the article. And then she was going to make espresso and spend the next three weeks sitting next to her son while the nightmares resurfaced. (And maybe she'd even resurrect the reporter just so she could kill him again.)

"Down, girl," Dana muttered into her coffee as she contemplated the morning edition of the _Palm City Herald_ in front of her. "Thou shalt not use thy powers for evil purpose. Damn it, Jack, why'd you make us swear that oath in your class?" She sighed, grimacing as she turned to the rest of the article. Somehow, one of Fleming's personal staff had gotten hold of "sensitive documents", one of which included divorce papers bearing Vince Faraday's signatures. The other set of documents had been consent for medical treatment. Both had been dated for two days before this edition of the paper.

Dana was _not_ a happy girl. She was pissed.

And she was going to kill her husband _properly_ this time.

- o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Want to cheer for Dana or Peter in this situation? Drop a line and let me know!


	4. Run For Cover

Hey, it's an update! Dana is the focus of this chapter, and she's not happy.

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Chapter four: Run for Cover

Dana Faraday stared at the door to her apartment, feeling strongly like she was about to watch the Ring with Vince and the Jackals. Again. (After the first time she'd done that, horror movies had been banned and she'd forced them—and her darling fiancé—to sit through Hello Dolly and My Fair Lady as penance.) This time, though, Dana was sure she'd rather be back with Vince—before their marriage—and the Jackals, sitting through Lofgren teasing Hartman and Greene setting off an air horn just as she and Vince were about to kiss during one of the few _quiet_ moments of the movie. Vince had graciously allowed Dana first crack at beating the shit out of the sergeant.

This time, though… Dana sighed. This time, she was preparing to meet Peter Fleming.

She _really_ wished she was watching the Ring instead.

A little over a day ago, she'd been quite mercifully oblivious to the fact that her _darling_ husband was still alive. And then a bombshell had been dropped in her lap: Not only was he alive, but he'd signed divorce papers! Dana was quite prepared to beat the crap out of him, just like she'd done to Hartman nearly twelve years ago. Only the fact that Trip was hiding in his room, sobbing, or puking up anything he'd managed to eat was keeping the public defender from storming down to ARK Towers to kill Fleming and anyone who got between her and the asshole she'd somehow married.

Vince was probably lucky there was an army between the two of them.

Peter Fleming was coming to her apartment.

Dana didn't want him to come. He was, and she couldn't stop him. Maybe she'd put rat poison in his coffee…or hers.

- o – o -

Peter supposed he was lucky that Faraday was still under sedation—not as heavy as it had been two days ago, of course. If the vigilante hadn't been, the billionaire was rather sure he'd be receiving Final Judgment. Fleming knew how devoted Faraday was to his family—he'd heard enough from Voyt over the course of nearly a year, before he'd had the man shot. If Faraday woke up to learn that he'd inadvertently gotten divorced from his beloved Dana, ARK Corporation would cease to exist in Palm City as a building.

_And _that_ little speck of knowledge is what interests me_, Chess threw in. _Why the hell didn't Voyt think to mention the Jackals sooner? Damn. Think we could recruit them?_

Ah. Yes. There was that, Peter conceded. Vince Faraday had served in the military since the young age of sixteen, when he had somehow finagled his way into a spot at West Point Academy. He'd graduated at the tender age of nineteen (a year early, although he'd taken more than enough credits to graduate early, as it would seem), and had been thrown to the wolves for his first assignment as a wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant. Or, to be more specific, he'd been thrown to the Jackals, a group notorious for breaking their commanding officers into little tiny pieces, with very little remorse. They were Chess' kind of people.

And getting any more information on them than what he already had was going to require several million dollars paid to the right people.

_Ah, but think of the benefits, Peter_, Chess replied. The other man was practically smirking, Peter decided. Pity his alter-ego wasn't corporeal. _Throw a few million dollars at the Department of Defense, get Vince's entire life's history in exchange. I wonder if we could get the Jackals to work for us…_

Peter sighed, rubbing his temples. If Chess made the same point more than once, it meant he _wanted_ something, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Was it any wonder, really, why he compared his alter-ego to a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum? If only Chess could see the similarities…

_I do, I just choose to ignore them_, Chess replied with a lofty tone. If he'd been another person, Peter thought that Chess' nose would be in the air while his voice took on a decidedly snotty tone. The billionaire smirked into his coffee mug at the mental image. Chess didn't even reply, so Fleming counted it as a victory.

"Mr. Fleming?"

The billionaire looked up. His personal assistant, Charles Holt, had entered the penthouse. He had a suit coat folded over one arm, and was carrying a tray with a tea—or rather, a _coffee_—service on it with his free hand.

"Your first appointment is in an hour, sir," Charles continued as he set the tray down on the coffee table in front of his employer. "The car is waiting downstairs in your private garage, and Captain Sexton has reminded you—for the six-hundred and thirty-second time, he informs me—to take your bodyguard with you. Also, he suggests that, as you are visiting Mrs. Faraday, that you wear your flak jacket." He handed a cup of coffee to Fleming, prepared just the way his employer drank it in the mornings. (Milk and one sugar; Fleming refused to drink black coffee before nine AM, for whatever reason.)

"I'll take the body guard. Besides, what could Dana possibly do to me?" Peter replied as he sipped his coffee.

Charles gave him an evil look as he left. Peter shrugged. His bodyguards were some of the best in the world. They were supposed to protect him. If that failed, he could always let Chess out.

What could _possibly_ go wrong?

- o – o -

Fleming decided he'd made a rather poor choice of words earlier that morning. He was currently in the Faraday home—their apartment. Dana Faraday was sitting across from him, glaring. The billionaire was rather sure she was imagining all the ways she could kill him. He also made a mental note to check into his bodyguards' histories a bit better. Who would have guessed that the woman had dated this one several years before she'd met the vigilante he was keeping in ARK's basement?

An hour ago, he'd come to the Faraday apartment, hoping to resolve everything as quickly as possible. Honestly, he'd hoped that Dana would be so upset with her husband that she'd sign without fully looking through things. Unfortunately, she was a consummate lawyer. (He'd have no problem with that, but she _wasn't working for him_.) Now, though…

Peter sighed mentally. He was probably going to regret doing this, but…

Chess smiled as Peter turned over control. It was amazing what his other half could do when he wanted something that was being annoyingly hard to get. Mostly, that seemed to include letting _him_ out to play. Chess didn't mind, of course. He _liked_ being the driver. Sadly, this occasion called more for "convince people without hurting them", rather than his favorite game of "how many ways can I kill you with a pen?"—Samuels had survived that, sadly. Bastard.

"_Mrs. Faraday—Dana. Can I call you Dana?_" Chess asked, smiling. He sat up a little straighter as he talked, self-consciously smoothing down the hideous tie Peter seemed to favor. (If Chess had his way, every single maroon tie Peter owned, along with the light blue paisley ones, would be burned. What was wrong with a nice red or a sensible black tie?)

"You can call me Mrs. Faraday," Dana replied rather frostily. She crossed her arms over her chest, trying very hard not to scowl. Peter Fleming, the bane of her life, was sitting in her living room. If she were less of a lawyer—less of a good mother—she'd let the infamous temper red-heads were known for take over so she could give Fleming a piece of her mind. In a perfect world, it'd leave the prick in tears. This time, though… Well, nothing was perfect.

Chess smiled at her. "_Alright then. Mrs. Faraday it is._" He resisted the urge to slouch—Peter didn't slouch, and he was pretending to be the billionaire at the moment. "_I've been…_working_ with your husband, shall we say? When I hired him, a little over a year ago, it was because I needed someone I could trust. I knew about Chess, and—_"

"And you framed him, and tried to kill him on live TV so 'Chess' would be dead, right?"

"_Ah. No, not exactly. I needed someone who wasn't connected with ARK—I'd suspected that Chess was…working with people in my company for…a while. Vince wasn't connected with ARK in any way, so I asked him to mount an undercover operation for me. He would, theoretically, enter the criminal underground and help ferret the real one out. I only learned that he hadn't told you about the situation…earlier, I suppose?_"

Dana raised an eyebrow. She knew what Peter Fleming was—he was Chess. And now, he was trying to claim her husband was actually working undercover for ARK to catch Chess. Sadly, it was…kind of starting to make sense. Dana hated herself a little at that moment. She hated her dear, soon-to-be-ex husband a little more, though.

"So…let me get this straight," Dana cut in before her guest could continue. "You're saying that my husband has been pretending to be dead so he could do an undercover mission for you. Is that about right?" Fleming nodded. Dana raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest. The man was unbelievable; hell, she believed him about as far as she could throw him. And yet… She bit back a groan and sighed mentally. Somehow, the scumbag sitting across from her had the most plausible explanation she'd ever heard.

That still didn't explain the divorce papers.

"_He didn't tell you about the mission, I suppose,_" Chess murmured. He was beginning to enjoy pretending to be Peter. The mastermind wondered how far he'd be able to push the public defender before she broke down sobbing. "_I suppose he also didn't mention that we've been… ah…_"

It was a good thing he'd stopped when he did. Dana looked like she was two seconds from murder. Not that that was a bad thing, but Peter would never let him drive again if he woke up to find that Dana Faraday had killed him with a mug of cheap coffee. (Of course, Peter wouldn't be pleased if he'd been killed with a mug of _expensive_ coffee either, so…)

"Get. Out." Dana hissed, eyes glinting with barely-contained fury. "Or I. Will. Kill. You."

Chess left. As he closed the door behind him, he heard the Faraday brat utter one comment—the first he'd uttered in over an hour, actually. (Dana had signed the divorce papers before shoving him bodily out the door, still screaming at him.)

"Is dad a zombie, then?"

The criminal mastermind was still laughing when he let Peter take the driver's seat back.

- o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Think Dana shouldn't be let near Vince anytime soon? Drop a line and let me know!


	5. Isn't It Wonderful

Hey, it's a new chapter! Dana will kill Travis for this...

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Chapter five: Isn't It Wonderful

Dana was still reeling from the shock of learning that her deadbeat of a husband was still alive by the time she arrived at work the following Monday. Given that she'd had two days to process the shock, she should have been over it. The only thing she'd managed to do, though, was decide that her former husband was one hell of a deadbeat jerk. The last time he'd gone undercover, he'd made sure to call her every week. This time…not even a peep. _Although_, a niggling corner of her mind said, _maybe he _had_ tried to call_. There was that phone call with the heavy breathing on the other end… Nah. Couldn't have been him—not even Vince would have been that much of a gutless coward.

She sighed and turned the car off. She'd already packed Vince's things up, minus his army jacket and medals. Trip still needed some reminder that his father was—had been—a good guy who loved his family. Dana wasn't going to take that away. Not like Vince and his new _boyfriend_. Her lip curled at the thought. She'd never once suspected him of infidelity, until that visit from Fleming.

Alright, she had to concede that the visit was just too perfectly timed. Vince would have at least spoken to her face-to-face and given her the dignity of screaming at him. This wasn't like him. _He'd better be in a coma,_ Dana thought darkly as she punched the call button for the elevator. She had the feeling that something like that had happened, along with the feeling she should have just stayed in bed today. There were always days like that.

Weren't they wonderful?

Dana sighed and rolled her eyes as the elevator stopped at the main level of the building that housed the Public Defender's office. She had a load of files to work through, and more than enough problems of her own on top of those. There were some days where she really just hated coming in to work…

The public defender was halfway through her third mug of coffee and the sixth case file of the morning load when someone knocked on the door to her office. Considering that her husband was currently plastered across the front pages of the tabloids again, it wasn't too surprising. Dana wondered if she could sue the _Herald_ for libel, before deciding it wasn't worth it. For one thing, she hadn't been mentioned—yet—and for another, she really didn't care. She had to take care of Trip, not worry about her ex-husband and hi…

Dana looked up as the door opened. Kia was standing there, holding a stack of folders in her arms.

"Oh god, Kia, not more files," she groaned.

"Ha ha. That's cute. No, these ones are actually mine," Kia replied. "You won't be getting any more until this afternoon…or maybe you'll get to ditch most of them and take up the current hot topic."

Dana raised an eyebrow.

"Word has it that Travis is throwing darts at a board with our names on it—and his, of course—so he can decide who gets to defend the city's favorite smuggler."

"Why do I have the worst feeling of déjà vu?" Dana muttered, burying her face in her hands. "I have the awful feeling I'm going to get picked for this lovely, cushy assignment from hell. Twenty bucks on it?"

"And a pizza of the winner's choice," Kia agreed. "Beer is on whoever's not driving." Dana smiled at Kia. It was likely that Philips—her boyfriend of the past few months, whom Dana had yet to meet in person—would be bringing a case of beer with him. Kia complained about his drinking, but had admitted that he only had one beer a week…if he worked out like crazy. (They'd shared a snicker over the security guard being so obsessed about his weight before returning to work.)

"This is not going to end well," Dana muttered as Kia left.

- o – o -

It said something about the universe that Dana was right. Dana thought the universe, fate, time, whatever it was, sucked. She hated it with a passion. She _really_ wanted to bury herself in paperwork, or stacks of files from the archives… Anything but _this_. Mostly, she just wanted to hurt Travis.

Dana was currently on the causeway that connected Owl Island and Owl Island Prison to the mainland. She had won the office lottery. She got to defend the smuggler scum who was—technically speaking—responsible for the gang war that was tearing Palm City apart. The only silver lining was that Kia was buying her an extra-large meat lover's pizza and the brand new twenty in her purse. Kia had handed it over without a word, looking a little dazed. Dana was in the same state of shock.

She sighed as the bomb sniffing dog finished its circuit of her car. She'd had to sit through the guards checking the undercarriage with mirrors, had had the contents searched for anything suspicious, had a pat-down search, and then they'd brought out the bomb dog. One thing for sure was that Owl Island was _incredibly_ thorough about searching people who got onto the island. That was one thing she had to commend Portman on, though—the more precautions taken, no matter how annoying they were, the fewer escapes there were. Hell, the number of complaints against the guards had gone down since Portman had taken over. (Although that could be just as worrisome, Dana thought as she put her car back into gear and drove slowly down the rest of the causeway to the final checkpoint.)

It was time to meet her new—and currently _only_—client, Dominic Raoul. Scales. The bane of the police force and head of the Longshoremen's Union. She'd read the dossier on him while she'd had to sit through the numerous searches of her vehicle and possessions. While it had been thorough where his work history was concerned, everything else was spotty or just non-existent. He'd appeared in Palm City at the age of nineteen, had lived in a halfway house for runaways for almost six months while working odd jobs around the docks. Records after that were a bit iffy, but they picked up again two years later. Missing pieces from the age of twenty-three onward were mostly concerned with his private life.

Dana sighed. Putting together a defense—hell, even being able to _like_ her client enough to not want to kill him—was going to be absolute murder. Not to mention that the only jury in the world who wouldn't try to get him the death penalty, or even plain convicted of anything, would be made entirely up of longshoremen… It was not a good picture. This case was going to be worse than the time she'd had to ride along on a case in Chicago, protecting a man named Marcone.

Now that had been a nightmare. Somehow, though, she thought she'd prefer to defend the Marcone guy again. At least he was known to be courteous to a fault with his lawyers. That was probably because he needed to keep them happy enough to do pro bono work for his union, but Dana wasn't too sure about that.

It was probably apparent that she was nervous. Hell, who wouldn't be? Even Sestito—that bastard—had been quoted in the press that he wasn't always so thrilled about working with Scales. The man was terrifying, plain and simple. And she got to defend him. Oh joy.

Dana sighed and pulled into a parking space in the visitor's lot. She was the only one parked there, which relieved her a little. The press was going to have _another_ field day when they found out who her new client was…

The maddening thing was that she actually _wanted_ Scales to get off scot-free. It'd serve her lying rat of a husband right. And it'd stick it to Fleming, the man her darling husband had been sleeping with.

Alright, she needed a therapist. But after she visited her new client.

Why did she have such a bad feeling about this…?

- o – o -

Scales was led into the visitor's room half an hour later. He was a large man, even by most standards. The fact that he easily dwarfed his guards only made him seem that much larger—and his guards were rather tall themselves. Dana decided that it was the fact that the smuggler seemed at ease, even in the handcuffs and shackles that made him seem so large. It was disturbing.

Dana sat across from him, trying her best not to stare. It was hard. It wasn't every day that you met a man who was covered, head to toe, in greenish-gold scales. The guards looped the chain through a bar on the table (which was bolted to the floor), and stood back, as unobtrusive as possible.

"So," Scales rumbled after a few minutes of silence, "you're me new lawyer, eh?" Dana nodded, too intimidated to speak. "Lovely." He frowned. "I ain't gonna eat y', ducky," the smuggler added, correctly guessing her fear.

"That's nice," Dana said, giving a silent prayer of thanks when she managed not to squeak. "So, is there anything you feel the need to divulge that will make this relationship end as quickly as possible?"

Scales sat back, an odd look on his face. Dana was afraid she'd gone a bit too far when the smuggler started laughing.

"I like you, Mrs. Faraday," he finally told her. "And if you don't get me out of here as soon as possible, the current body count will go through the roof. I don't want to add children to my conscience."

Dana raised an eyebrow at that. So the smuggler did have one. How surprising.

"I'll see what I can do," she promised. Oddly enough, it felt like she actually meant it.

That didn't mean _Travis_ was going to survive. Office lotteries for cases should be illegal.

- o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Have any bets on Travis' chances of survival? Drop a line and let me know!


	6. Sun Sets In Paradise

Hey, it's an update! Vince has so many problems...

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away!

- o – o -

Chapter six: Sun Sets In Paradise

Vince hated being cooped up in hospitals. He'd never done well in them, even when he acknowledged the fact that he should probably be in one. Dana had often told him that, even if he had a gaping chest wound and an alien popping out of it, he'd still try to get up and walk the injury off. The former police officer had to agree with her there.

That being said, he was about to go stark raving mad. He'd been stuck in this same blank, off-white hospital room for almost a week. His only human contact had been with a cold, impersonal bastard of a doctor who could probably make Greene curl up and cry. Vince didn't count the visits from Fleming as human contact—the man was a human snake, and he was being unusually… Well, creepy, was a good way to put it.

The vigilante didn't mind the banter he occasionally had with Chess—it was kind of fun, and let him pretend that he was actually some kind of hero. Bantering with the bastard out of costume, though… That was a whole other ballpark right there. For one thing, he felt horribly exposed and vulnerable, now that Fleming knew his secret identity. For another, he was basically naked and in soft restraints that he couldn't get out of.

The most worrisome part wasn't being clad in his boxers (dry-cleaned while he was in surgery, apparently), or being strapped down to a bed so he couldn't injure himself (or, conveniently, fight back). No, that honor was reserved for the fact that Fleming was being nothing but charming, polite… A small, traitorous part of his mind kept suggesting that Fleming either a) genuinely cared about his health and well-being, or b) was doing a weird villainous version of courtship/dating. You know: If you love someone…tie them down and break their will until they admit their undying love. Vince would happily take cyanide if any of his teammates had shown up to offer him a pill at that point.

He did not, under any circumstances, want to believe that Fleming was courting him, in any way, shape, or form. It was disturbing. And creepy. And…Fleming was his nemesis. Archenemies did not date! Wasn't it against the vigilante's code to date… Wait. No—Batman had basically disproved that rule, as had a number of other heroes. (There was a reason he preferred the Cape, aside from the fact that it was a local business and always had been.)

Vince sighed and flopped back against the pillows. For a hospital bed, this one was surprisingly comfortable. The vigilante had a feeling it had something to do with the niggling little voice in the back of his head and its suggestion, but wasn't too keen on finding out. He was pretty happy that his restraints had been downgraded to only keeping his wrists and ankles close to the railings, though. He could sit up now, which was a vast improvement over being held down. Not by much, but Vince would take what he could get. Any improvement was a good thing.

And… Well, every silver lining had a cloud, as his granddad had always said.

Fleming was back. As usual, he was wearing a suit and tie. Vince had to wonder if the billionaire slept in business suits too, before remembering that his arch-nemesis did occasionally resemble a normal human being…albeit one that was just a shade richer than Donald Trump. Fleming looked immaculate as always. On this particular visit, though, he was looking smugger than usual and was holding a sheaf of oddly familiar papers in one hand.

"You're awake."

It was a statement of the facts, cold and precise, just like Fleming's normal demeanor.

"And still ignoring me." Fleming sighed as he took a seat. Vince continued staring at the ceiling, counting cracks in the plaster. There weren't many, but they looked kind of like a rabbit if he squinted his left eye; if he squinted his right eye and tilted his head a little, it looked like a duck. (It was obvious he had too much time on his hands.)

"Was it that obvious?" Vince replied absently. He was still trying to decide if he liked the duck or the rabbit more. He really wanted something to read, even if it was weeks or months old newspaper.

"Quite," Fleming said dryly. He unfolded the sheaf of papers. Vince saw, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, the heading that stated they were divorce papers. This was going to go a long way to explaining what had happened while he'd been unconscious…

"What are these?" the vigilante asked, somewhat nervously as he stared at the papers in his lap. The blue paper was a nice contrast against the unending, blinding whiteness of the blanket spread over his legs. He had a feeling he knew just _who_ the divorce papers were; he just didn't want to confirm.

"Something you should find interesting," Fleming replied, settling back in his chair. The same self-satisfied smirk was in place as Vince looked down at the papers. It just confirmed what he already knew: They were _his_ divorce papers. As he couldn't even recall signing anything since he'd "died", he could only assume that they were _really_ good forgeries or that he'd been coerced into signing them during the four-day gap in his memory. (He'd been out for four days, one of which had been spent in surgery under ARK Towers. All things considered, Vince thought he'd prefer being back in the warehouse, which had mysteriously burned down the day before.)

"I'm going to have to kill you for this, you know," Vince replied conversationally as he began tearing the papers into little bits. Fleming raised an eyebrow.

"Considering that Dana believes that, not only have you been lying about being alive, you've also been unfaithful to her, what exactly would that do for you?" He sounded smug. Vince wondered what would happen if he set one of his Jackals on the billionaire, before discarding it as a bad idea. He was legally banned from contacting any of his men—except for Marty, but Marty was dead—and they had the same ban on contacting each other. Plus, it just wasn't worth the Jackals' brand of overkill. Even if he _did_ want to rip Fleming's heart out for doing this.

Vince chose not to respond to that, and imagine setting Fleming on fire until the man left. As soon as the door shut behind the billionaire, he rolled onto his side as best he could and buried his face in the pillows, sobbing. He didn't even care if the cameras were recording every second of this.

His life, the life he'd been working so hard to get back, no longer existed.

- o – o -

_Do you _honestly_ believe that crushing our vigilante is going to make him love you?_ Chess asked conversationally as Peter rode the elevator back to his penthouse. _Because I think he's just going to end up hating us. And, contrary to what you might think, rape isn't exactly a turn-on for me._

"That is surprising," Peter muttered. Considering just how immoral—and amoral—his alter-ego was, it actually did surprise the billionaire. He'd have thought the homicidal maniac would have done anything to possess the Cape. Or, for that matter, Faraday, once they'd discovered the vigilante's true identity several days ago. To discover that his alter-ego had an actual compassionate streak nearly floored Fleming.

_Oh, how quickly he forgets _why_ I was created_, Chess grumbled. _You know there's a reason I keep insulting your intelligence, old man_.

Fleming decided he wasn't going to delve into some of the gaps in his memory where Chess's creation was concerned. He probably didn't want to know what had happened to induce it. Unfortunately, the billionaire had the uncomfortable feeling he knew _exactly_ what the madman was implying.

_Shut up and go to work_, Chess snapped, sounding irritable.

Fleming sighed and got to work. He _did _have a company to run, after all. Before he started on the paperwork, though, the billionaire arranged a meeting between Faraday and his ex-wife. He was sure he was twisting the knife just a little, but honestly… Well, he didn't care. Swooping in to save the day was sounding like fun.

_Stop. Please. You'll make me throw up_. Chess' interjection into Peter's thoughts were to be expected of course. Peter smiled at the comment as he signed another set of requisition forms from the Records department. What the boy running the department needed another six-hundred boxes of paperclips for, Fleming couldn't fathom. But the brat was obscenely good at his job and ARK didn't have offices so efficiently run anywhere else on the planet, so he'd get his six-hundred boxes of paperclips.

Peter barely acknowledged the message from his secretary sometime around lunch that Ms. Thompson—formerly Mrs. Faraday—had come to visit her ex-husband. He could watch the security tapes later, if he was really interested in the confrontation.

- o – o -

Dana rode the elevator down to ARK's first basement level, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. She could have been anywhere else, doing _anything_ other than meeting her traitorous rat of an ex-husband. But…here she was, visiting Vince. The public defender had no idea what had compelled her to agree to the invitation. She was kind of regretting it, now that she was here at ARK Tower.

She crossed her arms over her chest, chewing on her lower lip. The case with Scale wasn't helping her mental state much, on top of everything with Vince and his unfaithfulness. (That did make her feel a little better about the sort-of flirting with Travis. Just a little.)

The redhead sighed and brushed her hair back from her forehead. She could worry about her least-favorite client and Travis later. She needed to yell at her ex-husband for a little bit. That would make her feel better.

Maybe…

Dana exited the elevator, feeling queasy from the butterflies in her stomach. Her biggest question was why her…why _Vince_ was in the basement of ARK Tower. If he was sleeping with Fleming, wouldn't it make more sense for him to be in the penthouse? Or at least in a guest room somewhere in the building? She stopped at the security checkpoint to register her guest ID with the guard sitting at a desk.

As she finished with the security check, Dana realized that she knew the man. It was Detective Jenner, one of the men who'd worked in Vince's old department. He'd been under investigation for corruption, if she recalled the rants correctly. The charges had never stuck, unfortunately.

Dana froze when she entered the room her ex-husband was staying in. She now knew why he was down here, instead of holed up in the penthouse. He looked like someone had used him as a punching bag, honestly.

Vince was staring at the TV mounted on the wall, although given that his eyelids were drooping and he had a glazed look on his face, he probably wasn't paying attention to whatever was on. His left eye was swollen and purple. That was the least of his injuries, Dana was somewhat horrified to realize. His left arm was wrapped in bandages, all the way up to his shoulder. His chest was also wrapped in bandages, some of which were starting to turn red under his right arm. Dana had a feeling a nurse was going to be coming in to change them soon.

The most surprising thing was that Vince was in restraints. All right, maybe it _wasn't_ so surprising. Dana remembered numerous occasions when her husband had required sedation before the doctors would even consider going near him—even for something as minor as putting a cast on his arm. Vince kind of hated doctors. (Although given that Lofgren had been the team medic, maybe it wasn't so surprising. The man was good at his job, there was no denying that, but he was a bit… Nuts. Nuts was a good way to describe him; the entirety of the Jackals too, come to think of it.)

"Vince?" Dana said softly.

Vince looked over at her, blue eyes widening slightly. They were darker than usual, which explained what was in the IV bag. Some kind of pain killer, if Dana didn't miss her guess.

"Dana…?" Vince said, almost too soft for Dana to hear. His voice was raspy and hoarse, as though he'd been screaming recently or hadn't used his voice for an extended period of time. He sounded tired too, as though someone had just put him through the wringer—or as if he'd just come back from a deployment.

"How…how are you?" Dana asked. She'd fully intended to yell at Vince, but seeing him like this, she just couldn't bring herself to do it. She could still be mad at him, but the public defender couldn't bring herself to make him feel any worse than he already looked.

"Been…better," Vince rasped after a few seconds. He leaned back against his pillows. "Surprised to…see you here," he added. "Thought you'd have…sent hate mail, or something." He smiled tiredly. Dana saw right through that—and mentally confirmed her worst suspicions. He really _had_ been having an affair, hadn't he? So much for believing that his signature might have been forged, or that those divorce papers had been faked… She sighed.

"I…I have something for you," Vince said, sounding cautious. He held up a folded piece of paper. Dana saw his hand shake slightly as he held it out to her. She also noted that the restraints looked a bit too tight for just keeping someone from scratching at stitches. Were his doctors expecting him to be violent, or something?

She took it, lip curling a little as she noted the shaky handwriting on the front of the folded paper. Grocery list? Really?

"I'm…sorry." Vince looked up at her, blue eyes oddly bright. "Us Jackals never could get our points across." He gave her a weak smile. Dana's eyes widened a little, and she nodded, tucking the paper into her purse.

"I somehow find it hard to believe you," she replied dryly. Vince shrugged. "How are you, though?"

"Could be…better," Vince chuckled weakly. "I feel like Greene got into a barbecue…contest with…that nutter 'copter pilot again. Bad results…those had." Dana felt her lips twitch a little at that.

"How…how is Trip?" the former police officer asked suddenly. _At least he was worried about _someone, Dana thought darkly.

"He thinks you're a zombie, Vincent," Dana replied. "Why the hell didn't you tell us you were alive sooner?" she yelled, getting over her silent promise to not yell at her ex-husband while he was injured. "And don't say it's because you were under orders not to! You managed it well enough the year we were first married! What the hell changed?!"

Vince quailed. He had a feeling that even a Jackal's Grocery List wasn't going to help his situation.

"I…I'm sorry?"

It was entirely the _wrong_ thing to say.

- o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Feel sorry for Vince? Drop a line and let me know!

As a side note, opening more than two bottles of nail polish and associated bottles of polish remover should constitute a major crime of some sort. Anyone agree with me?


	7. All Of Our Bridges Burned Down

Hey, it's a new chapter! Orwell reconnects with her father and learns of the miracles of morphine.

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Chapter seven: All Of Our Bridges Burned Down

Peter watched the security tapes of Dana Thompson screaming at her ex-husband, smiling as the tape looped back to the beginning. This was the sixth time he'd watched them today, and it was still funny as hell. Even Chess was having fun watching them, and that was saying something. He hadn't been to visit Vince since yesterday, but was still planning for a meeting later today. Maybe when the vigilante was still trying to recover from the shock of Dana slapping him and calling him a bastard and several other unprintable names… He had to wonder how Dana and her former husband would react to the news that he'd dug up one of Vince's old comrades. Jacob Lofgren had been surprisingly easy to entice back to Palm City. (There had been some mention of a confidentiality agreement and a military-imposed restraining order that Lofgren could now legally ignore, but Peter hadn't paid much attention to that.)

The billionaire smirked and picked up his laptop to read the morning reports from his department chiefs. And promptly spat a mouthful of coffee out onto the screen.

His daughter was alive. She was in the lobby. And she wanted to see him.

Why did this feel like the start to a _very_ bad day?

- o – o -

Orwell stood in the lobby, trying her best not to panic or start ranting about how evil the corporation was. She was supposed to be nice, sweet, runaway Jamie Fleming, here to see her father. Oh, the tabloids were going to _love_ this. Sweet Jamie Fleming, estranged daughter of billionaire Peter Fleming, come to see if the rumors about her daddy shacking up with a guy who was supposed to be a) a criminal, and b) not among the living were true. Why oh why hadn't she just stayed in the cave today?

Oh. Yeah. _That was why_, the hacker thought, seeing her partner's face on the front page of a newspaper. The _Palm City Herald_ was running the usual stories about Vince Faraday, including a run-down on the alleged undercover operation he'd been on that had turned out for the worse. Dead bodies were involved. A lot of dead bodies, actually. The Letters to the Editor section of the paper was filled with speculation that her partner had actually killed all those people at the warehouse and her daddy had gone completely nuts, to be shacking up with Chess. _Oh, if only they knew…_

The blogger sighed and crossed her arms over her chest as she waited. Pacing was undignified, or she'd have been doing that. Wouldn't her old etiquette tutor be _so_ proud of her? Jamie rolled her eyes. As soon as she dropped the bugs in her dear old daddy's office, and hopefully gotten some information on Vince, she'd leave. Hopefully she'd be able to drop off the grid again before someone found out that she'd been here.

Besides, she wanted to run an article on Scales. It seemed he'd gotten a new public defender. Orwell hadn't found the poor guy's identity yet, but as soon as she did… Well. The hacker smiled at the thought. She hadn't been able to run a good corruption and/or blackmail story in a while. It was high time she did one again anyways.

There was the niggling little sense that she was ruining someone's life, but Jamie pushed the thought back. If the people of Palm City didn't want to end up on her blog, they should have just avoided dirty dealings and criminals. Criminals like her dear father, for example.

"Miss Fleming?"

Jamie looked up, jerked out of her mental rant on why ARK Corporation needed to fall. Sure, she'd lose the source of income she had from them via a funnel in the R&D budget, but that's what the security company's competitors were for. A secretary was looking down at her with an odd little smile on her face, as though the woman was unsure of how to act.

"Yes?" Jamie asked, fixing a pleasant smile on her face. She would have been horrified to learn that it was almost the exact same one her father used at press conferences when he was trying to pass himself off as a concerned, apologetic businessman.

"Your father will see you now, Miss Fleming. This way, please." The woman walked away, and Jamie was forced to hurry after her, shouldering the Prada bag that was part of her ensemble as a spoiled little rich girl. She _hated_ being rushed, by anyone. Well, except for Vince. Him hurrying her usually meant he'd buy her lots of coffee later, before going on an extreme work-out binge that usually left him all… The blogger ripped herself away from pleasant, warm, fuzzy thoughts of a sweaty, half-naked Vince. She could imagine that later, in the safety of her new apartment. Right now, she had to deal with her father.

Oh goody.

- o – o -

Peter Fleming did _not_ pace, and he certainly _didn't_ get anxious like everyone else. That being said, his staring at the elevator doors every five minutes was perfectly normal. Anyone else would have done it if their estranged child, whom they hadn't seen in nearly seven years, was coming to meet them. Of course, anyone else wouldn't have become so thoroughly estranged from their own child.

Peter personally blamed Chess for that.

_As if you weren't protective of her to the point of insanity_, Chess grumbled. _Whose idea was it to send her to that all-girls boarding school in Switzerland…?_ Fleming honestly didn't have an answer for that. His homicidal alter-ego was, understandably, quite smug after that.

The billionaire sighed and settled back in his seat, arms crossed so he wouldn't fiddle with anything. That was undignified too. The elevator doors slid open, and it was all Peter could do not to run across the room and wrap his daughter in a bear hug, all while swearing that he'd never let her go again.

_Sure. Because _that_ will work out _so _well this time_, Chess said cheerfully. Peter closed his eyes and counted to ten so he didn't reply to Chess.

"Hello father," Jamie said. Peter looked up, not talking or even doing much more than breathing for several minutes. Jamie had gotten quite a bit taller since he'd last seen her. She'd cut her hair, too, which was a shame. His little ballerina wasn't there anymore; hell, even his little girl's eyes had changed. They had become colder, more calculating… In short, she was starting to look more like him, and less like her mother. That broke Peter's heart more than anything else; Jamie had been a beautiful little girl. Now, though…

_And I thought _I_ was the one with issues…_

"Jamie," Peter replied, struggling to keep his emotions in check. He really needed to find some way to express how much her being back meant to him… Nothing really came to mind, though. He didn't even know what his little girl liked anymore. "How…how are you?"

"Fine," she replied curtly. "Why, exactly, are you shacking up with a guy who's a) supposed to be dead, and b) is a mass murderer? That's weird, even for _you_."

Just like that, all of Peter's hopes of an immediate reconciliation with Jamie flew out the window, never to return.

"That…may be hard to explain, dear," he said awkwardly. "But the short of the story is that Vincent and I were—"

"Working on an undercover mission to get the real Chess?" Jamie snorted. "Yeah right."

_It's almost as if she didn't believe the press_, Chess muttered. _Now where did she get _that_ from, Peter?_

"That is the truth, Jamie," Peter replied, shoving Chess back as far as he could. "I…Is there anything I can do for you?"

Jamie raised an eyebrow. "Does that include meeting this guy you're now sleeping with?"

_Oh, if only_, Chess muttered. _Peter, does this conversation seem to be a little…out of our control?_

It _did_, and that worried Peter. Something was different about his little girl. Dear god, she wasn't a reporter now, was she? He'd always hoped she'd become a dancer, or do something in business instead of becoming a reporter. This was going to be a nightmare. And, as stubborn as he remembered his little Jamie being, he sincerely doubted that she'd be bought off by anything.

Still, what harm could meeting Vince do?

He smiled. "Why not? I do hope you'll at least have lunch with me first," the billionaire added. Jamie's smile was a bit too shark-like, but Peter ignored it. For the moment, he could just shove all those uncomfortable details to the wayside and pretend his little girl was back.

And, most importantly, pretend that she was _still_ his little girl.

- o – o -

Orwell breathed a sigh of relief when Charles Holt called her father out of the recovery room her partner was being held in. She'd been trying to figure out how she was going to get down to see Vince, without being detected, ever since she'd seen the news in the _Palm City Tattle Tale_. Out of professional fury—and not a little friendly rage—she'd sent sixteen packets of malware through the _Tattle Tale_'s servers. According to internet sources, they were still trying to get off of Irene Demova's site with no success. (And the success of the virus now meant she had to pay Anarchy the balance from that bet. _Again_.) On the downside, she'd had to reconcile with her father, at least partially, to get in to see her vigilante.

Vince was lying on a fairly comfortable looking hospital bed. The vigilante was half-curled up, the restraint around his left wrist pressing into the skin hard enough to make his hand pale. His feet were hidden underneath a thick white blanket. _Like this_, Orwell reflected, _he looked innocent and free of everything that was driving him to fight back. _Of course, that was probably the morphine talking. The hacker could see the IV line that disappeared out of sight underneath the blanket pulled up around one of her partner's shoulders.

"Vince?" Orwell said quietly. Her partner didn't respond. The hacker sighed and sat down on the one seat next to the bed. Judging by the stack of reports lying on the bedside table, her father was spending a lot of time down here. That was the really big question, in her mind: Why was her father spending so much time looking after a man who wanted him dead? For that matter, why was Vince still alive, instead of appearing on the evening news as the latest corpse in the current gang war?

"…Orwell?"

Orwell jerked out of her train of thoughts. It had almost been too faint for her to hear, but…

"Thank god…" Vince was on his back now, staring at her. There was a hand-shaped bruise on his face. It was definitely too small to be her father's hand, so that meant… "Thought you were Dana…" He sounded disappointed and relieved at the same time. Orwell thought that was a bit odd, even for Vince. She also noted that the bruise on his face gave him injuries on every part of his body. He was going to have a big scar on his forearm, for example. A nasty one. It looked like someone had tried to cut his arm down to the bone with a dull box cutter.

"She smacked you, I take it?" Orwell replied lightly, with far more levity than she actually felt. Her partner looked like a light breeze would knock him over, honestly.

Vince nodded, looking suitably embarrassed. "In retrospect, I probably should have contacted her…"

Orwell nodded. "Oh…Vince? There's um…something you should know…"

Her partner raised an eyebrow. "You're…actually secretly related to Peter Fleming?"

"His daughter," Orwell muttered, almost too quietly for Vince to hear.

"Oh, that's just perfect."

Orwell decided her partner was taking this a lot better than she'd thought he would. Of course, that was probably also the drugs talking.

Either way, she'd take what she could get.

- o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Should Vince not be drugged when Orwell drops the bombshell on him again? Drop a line and let me know.

Due to some concerns raised in a review of the previous chapter, I feel the need to clarify some things: No, Peter was not raped by the people who murdered his wife, prior to the birth of Chess. He watched his wife being tortured to death, was beaten badly, and saw the same men who'd murdered his wife about to start doing the same things to his daughter.

I would also be more likely to write Peter as a chess geek who created Chess to get revenge on his tormentors first.


	8. Are You Ready?

Hey, it's a new chapter! Dana realizes something important.

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Chapter eight: Are You Ready?

Dana tapped her pen against the paperwork on her desk, staring off into space. There really were better things she could be doing. Like helping clients who were innocent, for example. Those were nice to have. Of course, given that Travis apparently hated her, she was stuck defending criminal scum.

_Who, I might add, has a really nice ass_.

The public defender grimaced at the mental voice and shoved it aside. She had enough on her plate without lingering on the better looking parts of her newest client's anatomy. Scales—Dominic, as she'd practically been ordered to call him, rather than the much more formal Mr. Raoul—was a scary man. He looked scary. He _was_ scary. And, unfortunately, her subconscious was right. He did have a really nice ass.

"You need to get laid, Dana," the public defender muttered under her breath. Obviously she could have slept with Travis anytime she'd wanted to, seeing as her darling husband hadn't made any effort to maintain his wedding vows. Dana groaned under her breath, threw the pen down, and buried her face in her hands.

It was far too early to contemplate what she'd like to do to her ex-husband. Now, thinking about castrating her boss with a dull object for sticking her with the smuggler's case, on the other hand….

Dana had a particularly evil smile on her face for the rest of the morning as she went over the case notes the office had been able to wrangle out of ARK's legal department. There wasn't a whole lot there, and the public defender suspected that the interrogations had been blacked out to keep her from finding anything useful. What really made her suspicious was the fact that the section where Scales should have been read his Miranda Rights was missing. It wasn't even one of the extensively blacked out sections. It was just…missing.

The public defender made a note to grill Philips over the issue. He was listed as the interrogating officer. It was a good thing Kia was so understanding about separating work and play, or Dana would never have considered asking her friend to get Philips to the Public Defender's office for a…friendly chat.

She also wished that she could say her interest in getting Scal…_Dominic_ out of jail was purely professional. Unfortunately, it had morphed into something of a petty vendetta in the past few days. She really wanted to make her ex-husband and his boyfriend squirm. Maybe she could even throw ruining ARK Corporation into the bargain…

Who said petty revenge wasn't worth it?

With that cheerful thought in mind, Dana began making notes on a pad of paper about what information she _had_ been able to scrape out of the reports.

- o – o -

Dana was counting the minutes till she could leave when a few odd thoughts struck her. She'd been listening to the theme from _Catch Me If You Can_ on the radio when it had hit her. Marty had told her that Chess was Peter Fleming, a few hours before he'd died. He'd also said Fleming was sick—"_The man is _sick_, Dana, real sick._". Dana didn't know quite what Marty had been trying to imply, but it could mean a lot of things, all of them related to Peter Fleming's alleged moonlighting as Chess.

For another, the Cape had shown up right after her husband had died (well, three months, almost to the day if her son's sightings were to be believed). The body she'd gotten from the morgue to bury had been too badly burned—so the morgue said—for a DNA test. There was also the fact that it had seemed, at the time, to be a bit too short to be her husband. (There was also the fact that, she had learned later, DNA tests weren't hampered by burned corpses, unless the only thing left was a desiccated husk. Even then, trace amounts could—theoretically, Dana thought—be recovered.)

There should have been some way to test whether or not the corpse had actually been her husband's. Even if she'd thought about it at the time, getting permission to exhume the corpse would be a nightmare. As if ARK's pet judges would let her dig up evidence to get Peter Fleming on any kind of criminal charges.

With a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, the public defender realized she'd been duped into signing the divorce papers. And there was nothing she could do about it. What court in the world would believe her? That she'd divorced her husband because she thought he'd been sleeping with Chess, and that Chess was actually Peter Fleming—one of the richest men in the world, and certainly the richest man in Palm City? (Not including the Chandlers, of course, since the only known member of the family was in the secure wing of Owl Island's psychiatric ward, quite possibly for the rest of his life.) None of them ever would. She'd be committed, out of fear for her own safety. She'd lose Trip. She'd lose her family forever.

Dana buried her face in her arms and sobbed. Her paperwork lay next to her, all but forgotten. Vince may not have betrayed their vows, but she definitely had.

Five minutes later, Dana stopped sobbing and wiped uselessly at her eyes, smudging her mascara and eyeliner all over her hand an face. The pounding on her office door was getting pretty hard to ignore. Someone wanted to talk to her, and it was probably Travis. However much she wanted to make whoever it was go away, she didn't have that luxury. Who was going to hire her now, if she lost this job? Her parents definitely weren't letting her back into their home (although they'd at least take her son out of pity), and Kathleen wasn't an option anymore because she was busy as a live-in nurse for a violent schizophrenic patient named Tommy.

"Who is it?" Dana asked, giving thanks that her voice didn't crack. She hurriedly fixed her make-up to at least presentable—or get the worst of the smudging off, as it stood—and had pulled her hair back into a ponytail by the time the door had opened to admit a large man wearing a flat cap and a fairly threadbare suit jacket that had definitely seen better days.

"Ms. Thompson?" he asked, removing his hat. Dana nodded warily. News of her divorce had spread faster than rumors of what her sex life as the "wife of Chess" had been like, nearly a year ago. "I'm Michael Kaczanowiczk. You're the lady representing my boss, right?"

Dana sighed and nodded. One of the longshoremen. Just perfect. He was here to threaten her or bribe her, wasn't he?

"That's great. Listen, us guys at the docks, we… Well, we thought we'd pay you extra on top of what our tax dollars are."

_Bribery it was,_ Dana thought with a sigh.

"We know that…well, our boss ain't the easiest guy to get along with, and we felt bad about you having to do that, on top of what the press is saying about you."

"Bribing me will make me lose my license," Dana replied. "And then your boss will lose his best chance at getting out of prison." Alright, he'd get another one, but she had petty revenge to plan…and she wasn't exactly in the mood for this. Not after what she'd just realized and spent five minutes sobbing over, anyways.

"Well, we can always put it in as food instead. My wife makes great pies." Kazzie smiled. It was obvious that he enjoyed his wife's cooking quite a bit. Dana sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. This was like talking to a circular brick wall… The thought nearly made her begin to cry again. That had been something Vince had always said about talking to the head of the policemen's union…

"Look, Ms. Thompson, we're trying to be nice. We've got kids we're worried about. No matter what else you hear about Mr. Raoul, he's the only reason we still _got_ kids." Kazzie stood up, as though he were about to leave.

"Sit," Dana said, pointing at the chair he'd just vacated. "Information is what I need more than the money, tempting though the offer may be." And it was, she admitted to herself as Kazzie began answering her questions; questions that, the public defender hoped, would get her client out of her hair faster.

Maybe this wasn't going to be such a shitty day after all…

- o – o -

Vince was enjoying the novelty of having his hands free from the restraints he'd been in for the past few days. Eating was no longer a humiliating experience, and he was able to eat real food. The eggs and bacon definitely weren't as good as Dana could make with her eyes closed and on two hours of sleep, but hell, it was real food.

He was well into his second pot of coffee when he read the headline on the morning edition of the _Palm City Herald_. His wife was Scales' public defender. She was eating dinner with the longshoremen. And Kazzie was escorting her around the docks while she interviewed character witnesses for Scales' trial.

Vince spat the mouthful of coffee he'd been about to drink all over the paper and began choking on what he'd accidentally managed to inhale. What else could go wrong? the vigilante wondered morosely as he put the paper down so he could concentrate on making the hiccups stop.

That was when Peter Fleming decided to make his daily appearance.

Vince decided that fate had an obscene hobby that involved screwing with him.

- o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Want to give Dana a hug? Drop a line and let me know.


	9. Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You

Hey, it's a new chapter! Dana and Vince both have problems.

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Chapter Nine: Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You

Dana Thompson (formerly Faraday, until the divorce she'd been duped into), as a general rule, despised early mornings. She'd prayed she'd left them behind after law school, and again when Trip had hit the age of three. So far, she was still searching for a law on any set of books that would let her argue they were never to be allowed under any circumstances. There had been no luck there.

Ditto for press conferences that she had to attend. Double ditto and immediate defenestration for anyone who decided to have both at the same time.

That being said, her client was heading for a quick one-way trip out the nearest window.

Dana grumbled something unhappy into her mug of coffee as she packed Trip off to Mrs. Blander's apartment to watch cartoons with Gerry. She had to be at Owl Island Prison in an hour to keep her client from doing anything _too_ stupid during the press conference. The public defender had no idea why Dominic had scheduled a press conference, and sincerely wished he'd called her at least three days beforehand so she could have convinced him to cancel…

_Of course,_ Dana mused as she started her car, _that's probably _why_ he only called yesterday. That, or the idiot's done something to lose his phone privileges… _She knew she shouldn't refer to her client as an idiot, but it was _so_ hard. He could be stunningly brilliant one second, and slip right back to utter stupidity the next. Ask him a question about the docks, and he'd give a sermon; ask him about the murder he'd committed…and he'd stutter and backtrack and contradict himself.

If he was that easy to fluster, Dana was going to place extremely good money on losing the case—no matter _how_ good her arguments were. Dominic Raoul was going to lose the case for her because the relentless badgering ARK's raft of attorneys was going to use on him was going to make him lose his train of thought. And considering that the pre-trial motions were probably not going to go well (who knew if Judge Carlson was in Fleming's pocket?), she was going to be working through a murder trial.

_Brilliant_.

Dana's only consolation was that the drive to Owl Island was short, and the guards knew her so well that they only needed to search her car once.

And then she saw the news vans.

- o – o -

Dana had to hand it to Scales: He _really_ knew how to work a crowd. She had to wonder where he'd learned to act like he was the poor, defenseless victim though (and, privately, if he'd been playing her during their meetings when she badgered him about small details). The public defender swore he'd been about to start crying at several times throughout his surprisingly well thought-out speech. The smuggler, she decided, would have made one hell of a politician. (Or a lawyer; he was about that sneaky.)

By the end of the press conference, Dana was pretty sure it would work out. At the very least, Scales…_Dominic's_ play-acting was going to make the pre-trial motions she had to go through a lot easier. And, if she had to, arguing for a change of venue was going to be a hell of a lot easier. The public defender watched her client answering a few questions, and sighed. He was acting…quite out of character, from what she'd expected. Hell, a few more minutes of watching him get sympathy from the reporter he was talking to and she'd burst out crying herself. (She had no idea where he was dredging up half the bullshit about some circus he was spouting, but she had to admit that it was pretty damn good. She believed it.)

Dominic stood up after saying the last of his goodbyes to the reporter, who was wiping tears away from her eyes. He smiled at Dana, who smiled back out of pure reflex.

"So, ducky," he rumbled under his breath as he drew level with her, "'ow are me chances at trial?"

Dana raised an eyebrow. "You mean after that hits the air?" She laughed. "You're either going to lose every ounce of credibility you've ever accumulated as a gangster, or you'll have every judge in the city letting you go because you've obviously learned your lesson from such a horrible life."

Dominic nodded, looking thoughtful. "Shoulda thought abou' tha' years ago," he murmured under his breath. Dana didn't ask, and she didn't want to know. (What she wanted to know was just why the longshoremen seemed to have taken it upon themselves to look after her and her son—it was creepy. Like having a pack of protective stalkers. It said something that she would have preferred ARK instead.)

"Let's hope your stunt works," Dana muttered as Scales was led away by the guards.

She really, truly hoped it did.

- o – o -

Charles Holt watched the last of the smuggler's press conference, feeling a sense of impending doom settle over his mind. His employer was, in all likelihood, watching the same thing upstairs. The man rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing. He couldn't deny that the deformed criminal had style, though. Dredging up what had _appeared_ to be painful childhood memories, to play with the emotions of the assembled reporters, so as to secure a better outcome for himself if his case went to trial… That had taken guts.

He'd suspect his brother-in-law of doing something like that.

Just the thought of his brother-in-law made Charles shudder. Gailord was beyond the pale when it came to law and order. While the general population—and the government—would have labeled him a cyber terrorist of the worst order, Gailord insisted on calling himself an "information freedom fighter"…which was the same thing. It was rather fitting that he called himself Anarchy, Charles decided.

"Speak of the devil," Charles murmured as his cell phone rang. He'd picked a rock'n'roll tune by Bob Dylan specifically because Gailord hated the man with a raging passion. "Gailord? Should I—"

-_Dude, Charlie, don't _ever_ call me Gailord. And you should probably be looking for a nice safe bunker. Did you know that your boss' boyfriend worked with an actual group of terrorists, and one of them is friendly with the scaly green dude who just got the entire city to start eating out of his hand?_-

Charles sighed and began massaging the bridge of his nose again. There was surely some message his brother-in-law wanted to impart, aside from his usual inane chatter… Wait… Charles stared at his phone as the dial tone rang in his ear. Since when in hell did Anarchy show an interest in press conferences or the military?

He could barely suppress the shiver that went down his spine at the thought.

Hopefully his employer could handle whatever was going to happen next…

- o – o -

Vince honestly didn't know what he was supposed to expect when the doctors finally agreed that he was well enough to get out of the hospital bed. He'd been expecting—at the very least—that Fleming would come down to personally toss him into a jail cell. Or a dark hole in the ground somewhere where they'd never find his body…

_Well_, Vince amended silently, _that would have been _entirely_ more welcome…_ He looked around the room Fleming's assistant had led him in to, suitably impressed. He'd been in Fleming's penthouse before, but he'd only been in the office and living room of the fairly impressive apartment. The bedrooms, though, he'd never actually seen.

At least Fleming had the good taste to put him at the other end of a nice long hallway. Vince didn't think he'd be able to hold himself responsible for killing the billionaire in his sleep if he'd had to share a room with the man. (That was honestly what he'd been expecting, after learning of the divorce papers and Dana's reaction to the alleged affair. His face still hurt where she'd slapped him a few days ago.)

The vigilante sighed and flopped down on the bed. It was almost midnight, according to the sky outside and the clock on his bedside table. The hardest part was thinking of this room as his, though… He'd definitely lay claim to the mattress, though. It was nicer than the one in the cave and, Vince thought guiltily, it was nicer than the one on the bed he'd shared with Dana.

He wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep, but he _definitely_ knew when he was woken up. Someone was straddling his waist, and there was something very sharp and very cold pressed against his throat. Vince kept his breathing as deep and even as possible, reaching out with his other senses in an attempt to figure out who was near him. The sound of soft cloth rubbing against his jeans (he'd apparently fallen asleep in his clothes) told him that his assailant wasn't wearing anything that would protect him against an attack.

The heavy breathing was a good indicator of gender, but the smell of leather oil and strong soap told him one thing: Chess.

Vince didn't dwell on when he'd come to associate either scent with the billionaire. He was more focused on the fact that he had a straight razor pressed against his jugular. Slowly, as though he were finally waking up, Vince opened his eyes. He blinked rapidly, staring at the man sitting over him.

Peter Fleming was definitely not someone he'd have expected to see. Not half-dressed and wearing contacts at… (He chanced a look at the alarm clock) two in the morning. There was something decidedly intimate about the setting, not including the fact that Fleming was straddling his waist. In a dark room. At two in the morning…

"Hello Chess," Vince rasped, trying very hard not to move his jaw. From his own experience in the military, the vigilante knew just how much pressure it would take to draw blood, and how long it would take someone with enough experience to cut a man's throat before he could cry out. (It was about three seconds, if the cut was shallow enough. Fifteen if the goal was to actually kill someone, rather than fake a death.)

"_Hello Vince,_" the psychopath purred. He leaned closer to Vince's face, a look of concern on his features. "_I should have taken longer to kill him._" Vince froze when Fleming touched the cut bisecting his lower lip with fingers far too gentle to belong to a man who murdered at least four people before breakfast on a slow day. "_Peter is _not_ going to like this…_" The psychopath's hand moved gently across the bruises on Vince's face, most of which were fading to sickly yellow-green, instead of black and purple. He looked less like a battered spouse, but it was still ugly.

Vince pushed the thought of Fleming's hands and how gentle they were aside as he tried to decipher one of the man's comments. What the hell did Fleming mean, "_Peter_ wasn't going to like this"? All coherent thoughts collapsed as the psychopath bent down so his nose was practically touching Vince's.

"_He'll never let me out after this,_" Chess sighed. Vince's eyes went comically wide as Chess' lips pressed against his own, almost too softly to register. Before he could react, the psychopath was off his chest and halfway to the door. "_Pleasant dreams,_" the man laughed, slipping out of the room.

Vince blinked after the man. Then he decided that the first thing he needed to do (aside from rising his mouth with as much Listerine as he could find) was take a really, _really_ cold shower. He slipped out of bed and headed for the bathroom door.

After turning the shower on to settings just barely above Arctic, he stripped out of the threadbare jeans he knew were from his collection that Dana had probably brought over.

And then he did the best he could to erase the traces of any kind of arousal at what had just transpired.

Vince wished there was a way he could erase the encounter from his mind as well.

- o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Who had the worst day? Drop a line and let me know!


	10. Just An Ordinary Day

Hey, I've finally updated! Dana's pretty sure her life is a cosmic joke.

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Chapter ten: Just An Ordinary Day

Dana Thompson was good at ignoring things that bothered her. It was how she'd made her way through the first few months of Vince's "death". It was also how she'd been able to smile every time she went into work and had to smile through Travis trying to flirt with her (while she'd still been grieving, no less).

All of that practice was now going into ignoring the fact that members of the Longshoreman's Union were now following her around.

She didn't want to know _why_ they were following her, but did. The public defender had discovered that, over the past few days, every single dockworker in Palm City was loyal to Scales. All of the character witnesses she'd been collecting in case things proceeded to trial had one story or another about how generous he'd been to them, or how he'd been willing to work alongside them to discover if their complaints about working conditions had any merit. The smuggler was loyal to his men, and to his public profession. (Dana wondered why he'd never run for a political office; if half the stories she'd heard were true, the man would have had the vote of every single person who worked on the docks or was closely related to someone who did.)

Dana sighed as she caught sight of one of her shadows. This one was about fifteen (or at least looked it; some people got all the luck in the genetic lottery), and looked skittish. Dana couldn't blame him—working for Scales must have been terrifying. She was getting used to him, but… There were still some things that worried her. Like his tendency towards violence, or at least threats of violence. (His press conference had made it sound like he'd only ever learned how to use violence to get what he wanted, but his employees had another story entirely.)

"Do you want some coffee?" Dana asked, turning around to face her shadow. He'd been trying to look unobtrusive as he thumbed through a rack of magazines. _Tried_ being the operative word; Dana had yet to meet any man, straight or otherwise, who would willingly read _People_ magazine without making snide comments.

"Umm….yes?" he replied, chewing his lower lip. Dana rolled her eyes and got another cup of coffee from the barista.

"Stop trying to be sneaky," the public defender advised. "You're not good at it." With that, she walked away, sipping her coffee and thumbing through reports. Her shadow opted to walk beside her, pretending to be interested in his coffee. Dana made great strides in pretending that she didn't know the bulge on his back under his coat was an automatic.

It just wasn't worth the headaches.

- o – o -

Dana hated organizing paperwork. Sure, she only had one caseload to work through, but considering _who_ she was defending… The public defender sighed and resisted the urge to throw the lot into her waste bin. For one thing, she'd spent too much time pulling every shred of data she could find out of whatever sources she could get. For another, she had too much invested in this case.

After her revelation earlier that week, Dana had decided that getting Scales out was her first—and probably _only_—option for making ARK suffer. If she could get enough evidence together, she could, hopefully, be able to build a case against them. Fraud was probably her best bet, although suing them for emotional damages would work too. (She probably _wasn't_ going to be able to get Fleming for duping her into signing the divorce papers, since she'd done _that_ out of her own free will.)

The public defender sifted through her pile of references, looking for one piece in particular—the statements from the arresting officers. She had, as far as she knew, _one_ chance to get everything thrown out as circumstantial evidence. It rankled her that she had to help a criminal, but—as she'd become aware—Dominic was starting to grow on her. _If only_, she thought morosely, _he'd act more like the villainous scumbag the papers had always made him out to be…_

Of course, life was never that easy… Dana jumped as her phone rang. She checked the caller ID and wondered what had happened _this_ time.

"Mrs. Debolt," she said pleasantly, forcing a smile into her voice. "How can I help you?"

Dana hung up five minutes later and wondered why _her_ life had to be so complicated. It was probably some cosmic joke, wasn't it…?

- o – o -

Trip sat on the bench outside school, pressing the bag of ice to his face. Four kids—three girls, one boy (who didn't count because he was in kindergarten)—sat on the bench with him. Their mother, a scary lady with bright red hair, was busy yelling at a bus driver and the crossing guard. Both of them looked like they were about to cry. Trip didn't think that was a bad thing. His split lip and bruised shins didn't think so either.

He'd been waiting outside school for his mom to come get him, when three older boys had jumped him. Trip didn't know what their problem was. His dad had been proven innocent. (The ten-year-old did have to wonder why no one had looked up his dad's service record, though. He thought it should have been more obvious.) Trip was a pretty good fighter, but that was only in one-on-one against the boxing coach at school, who pulled his punches.

The boy had been waiting for them to get bored when _she_ appeared, four children in tow. Mrs. Kaczanowiczk had scared all three boys off and handed Trip the bag of ice. Trip blushed red in humiliation as she called him sweetie and sat him down on the bus stop's bench before heading over to harangue the bus driver who'd been waiting for more students, and the crossing guard, both of whom had stood by, ignoring the kid getting beaten up right in front of them.

Trip knew that, even with his dad's innocence being proven, people still hated his family. At least they hadn't broken anything this time…

His day got worse when Mrs. Debolt came out and began speaking to the red-headed woman who'd saved him. Trip gulped nervously when his teacher pulled out her cell phone and called his mother.

He was so dead.

- o – o -

Dana had given up trying to get rid of the Longshoreman's Union's presence in her life. She had the younger members following her around, and now their temporary leader had his wife looking after Trip. There was no way to escape them. Scales had been surprised when she'd told him about her shadows. It was news to him.

(And really, Dana could believe that. Somehow.)

She sighed and stared at her reflection in the mirror. "Dana, your life is a cosmic joke." The woman reached for her lipstick, looked at it, and sighed. The shade was too dark for a casual dinner with friends, so she put it back. The pink was discarded due to the sparkles. She had to hide a smile as she recalled the occasion it had been purchased for; if she liked Peter Fleming a little more, or her ex-husband a hell of a lot less, she'd have pulled the photo albums out and shared the pictures. (She had never given up the pictures of the Palm City Police Department's Cross-dress Ball. It had been a charity event for a youth group. Vince had looked stunning the backless black evening gown and bright pink lipstick. Marty had never let him live the look down.)

The public defender finally settled on lip gloss and pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail. It was pizza and soda with Kia and Kia's boyfriend. There was nothing fancy about it. Just a dinner with friends, and no children. (Philips was apparently a softie who let his nieces and nephews stay over if they were in Palm City, which was apparently all the time. At least their parents paid out for their spawns' visits, or Kia would have complained to Dana about it.)

When the doorbell rang, Dana jumped a little. She answered the door and smiled at the two people standing there.

"Hey guys," Dana said cheerfully, pulling Kia into a hug. She looked at Philips, wondering what had him so quiet. According to Kia, getting him to shut up was the trick.

He had an odd look on his face, and looked like he was about to start gaping. Dana turned to look at what he was staring at, and frowned. It was just a picture of her husband goofing off, taken several Halloweens ago.

Why, then, did the man look like he'd just seen a ghost?

-o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Think Dana needs to catch a break? Drop a line and let me know!


	11. Familiar Faces

Hey, NaNo is over! And I have an update for you!

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Chapter eleven: Familiar Faces

Vince paced around the penthouse apartment of Ark Towers, muttering curses in every language he knew under his breath. (He spoke—not fluently, but well enough—at least eight regional dialects from the Middle East. Mostly, it was cursing, but there were some useful phrases—namely "I'm about to set this on fire" and "Is this camel?") He was going to go nuts here. He'd been cooped up for a few days—ever since he'd been able to walk around on his own, even with the crutches—and it was driving him completely out of his mind. (On the upside, if he went nuts, he might be able to share a padded room with Hartman, which would have been fun as all get out.)

There were a few consolations to being stuck in Fleming's home, though. He had unlimited hot water that he didn't have to scrounge off the local pipelines (or spend his limited funds on cheap pay-by-the-hour motel rooms) to get. Fleming's cook seemed dedicated to making him gain weight by any means necessary, and Vince couldn't remember eating as much food as he had—outside of the academy, but that was random luck most days—and the food was great. (Benefits of having a five-star chef at your beck and call, apparently.) He had cable television that he didn't have to steal or get from a pay-by-the-hour motel room. And yet…

He was bored out of his damn mind. There were only so many shows he could watch before he went nuts. He'd seen every single movie SyFy had out and, God help him, he'd begun to lose interest in his stupid monster movies too. He was on almost permanent restriction from physical activity, which was grating and annoying since he'd been a vigilante for the better part of almost a year now. He was allowed to walk around on his own, without an escort, but… Well, getting out of the penthouse wasn't happening. He needed a keycard to get the elevator to open up for him. (Damn Fleming and his paranoid security measures.)

The bright side was that Fleming had, somehow, tracked down Jake Lofgren and dragged him up to the penthouse to, as Fleming put it, "Keep Vincent from chewing on the furniture, would you?" before he left for work. Given that Fleming had known nothing about Vince's previous career with the Jackals, he counted towards breaking an annoying contract keeping Vince from contacting any of his men from his old squad—Marty hadn't been included in the gag orders, since it would have looked strange if childhood friends who'd gone through a military academy and served for years together suddenly stopped talking to each other for no reason whatsoever. Lofgren, unfortunately, still couldn't convince Fleming to let Vince leave the penthouse.

Given that Vince looked like the poster child for a battered spouses PSA or a survivor of domestic violence, it wasn't too surprising. Just…annoying.

The former vigilante groaned in annoyance and flopped down on one of the plush sofas. He winced as his ribs let him know their opinion of him, and felt around for the remote. Soon, the sound of some daytime crap television show filled the sitting room/living room/whatever the hell rich people called it. Vince did some minor exercises—well, minor for _him_—and tried to drown out the noise of the show that was currently on through sheer force of will. (He was trying to figure out a better way to cut out distractions in a sort-of meditation, much like the trance Ruvi had taught him to sink into. It was working…moderately.)

There was only so much he could take, even with Ruvi's less insane techniques for inducing a meditative trance, before he had to stop doing push-ups and crunches and had to turn the TV off again.

Well, he could always take advantage of the cell phone he now had and call his old teammates… (Maybe, as a bonus, he could give their beloved handler at the Department of Defense an aneurism at the same time.)

"Hanson first…" Vince muttered, dialing the number from memory.

- o – o -

Hanson grumbled and swiped around at his bedside table, one hand searching for his alarm clock. He smashed the hapless bit of machinery and settled back down with a sigh. Retirement had been alright to him, except in the area of his willingness to be awake at all hours. Sleep had been a luxury when he'd been in the armed forces, and he'd been loath to give up any in his civilian life. He could afford to sleep in.

The beeping continued, forcing the giant of a man to sit up with a tired, annoyed groan. There had been a PGA tournament the day before, and he'd spent all evening arguing with the annoyed golfers who'd been misfortunate enough to lose their balls over his twenty-foot high fence. He'd slammed the door in their faces, finally, after telling them to get their lawyers if they wanted to keep arguing the point.

The noise was coming from his cell phone. A squinted check of the screen showed that it was an unknown caller. The man grunted. Probably one of the damn lawyers then…

"Hanson," he grunted into the phone, not having to fake any of the aggravation he was feeling. He stumbled upright and out of bed, yawning widely and listening to his jaw crack. There was yet another article in the paper about some billionaire and his abused boyfriend on the front page, and Hanson was about to chuck the paper again (if _that_ kind of inanity had made it to the headlines, there really wasn't anything worth reading about in the rest of the paper) when the man's voice on the other end of the line registered in his sleep-fogged brain.

"Captain?!" he yelped, fumbling the phone. "Jesus Christ a'mighty," Hanson swore. "I heard you were dead!" And really, he had. There had been no way to miss the news of Faraday's death—it was mostly in connection with ARK Corporation getting control of Palm City's police force, but that wasn't Hanson's concern, seeing as he was in Georgia and there were no ARK interests near his home.

-_Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated_— Vince replied dryly. –_Please tell me there's something that will take my mind off of the upsides to insanity._-

Hanson checked the paper's headline again, green eyes widening slightly. "Depends…" he said slowly. He heard the captain groan in annoyance and chuckled. "You look worse than after that one time in Fallujah, Captain Faraday," Hanson said. "Nice glamour shot, though. Five star restaurant, huh?"

He cracked up at the muffled sound of his former commanding officer's muffled swearing. Probably trying to asphyxiate himself with a pillow again, or something.

-_He's…disturbing, slightly_- Vince finally grumbled. –_I would prefer Fallujah, actually_.-

Given the fact that Vince had nearly died from electrocution and sepsis in Fallujah, it said something about the state of his relationship—whatever the hell said relationship actually _was_—with Peter Fleming. It was still goddamn funny, though.

"Sorry sir," Hanson said. "Just roll with it. See how much he'll give you before he throws you out is my best offer."

-_Remind me to murder you next chance I get_- Vince grumbled. Hanson laughed like a hyena as Vince hung up in disgust. Oh, the things he could get up to when Father Jackal wasn't in strangling range…

Now he had to get some coffee, and go through all the papers he'd scrapped out of annoyance. There _had_ to be some good blackmail there too…

- o – o -

Vince glared at his phone in disgust before pulling a pillow over his face. This was _not_ going to be a good day, he could tell. The cabin fever was going to kill him before Hanson's gossip could spread, at least. That was always a benefit… Of course, that was saying Fleming hadn't figured out some way to keep him from dying of humiliation and/or embarrassment too…

And he was starting to sound like a hormonal teenager again. It was the cabin fever. And the pain meds. Any second now, he was going to start mooning over Fleming's absence. (Wasn't _that_ a terrifying thought…)

The former vigilante sighed and stood up, ready to start pacing around again. Another sure sign that he was going stir crazy locked up here: He was starting to actually _like_ Pe…_Fleming._ He was starting to like Fleming.

He needed a hobby.

- o – o -

Dana tapped her pen against the table she was sitting at, one hand propped up on her chin. Pre-trial motions were, for the most part, tedious and dull. She'd argued her points until she was blue in the face. As to whether any of this was going to work… Well… The woman glowered over at her opponents, the fleet of lawyers who were trying to get her client convicted of murder. For all intents and purposes, they worked for ARK Corporation, despite the fact that they swore they didn't. It was a polite fiction maintained for the public. Dana knew better though.

Her client, the source of most of her recent headaches over the past few weeks, was sitting next to her. Dominic Raoul made her feel…tiny. It was worse when he was trying to be polite and charming. When he wasn't being an idiot (which was _still_ rarely, because he _hadn't_ stuck to the points Dana had coached him on for the past week and a half), he was surprisingly charismatic. He'd also, apparently, read Machiavelli. Dana just hoped she won her arguments and this case was thrown out before it went to trial.

She had more important things to focus on. Like killing Peter Fleming and getting her life back together.

Dana huffed in annoyance at the thought and threw her pen down on the table. It skittered across the worn, polished wood, sliding to a stop next to her client's hand. Dana refused to look at him, concentrating on what she was going to do if she won. She'd have to keep Mr. Raoul (she was no longer referring to him as Dominic, because he was being an idiot) from talking to the press without a set script that _didn't_ involve him pissing off ARK Corporation and/or Peter Fleming. She also wanted nothing to do with any cases for at least two days. (She'd ask for a week, but Travis couldn't afford to lose an employee for that long, so a week's vacation was out, even after having to keep someone like Raoul from doing something unbelievably stupid while trying to keep him from ending up on death row.)

The judge came back into chambers and Dana stood up with the rest of the people in the courtroom—the court reporter, Scales, her opponents, and the bailiff. The public defender resisted the urge to cross her fingers until after she had sat down again. She could pray that the motions she'd filed (three days ago, and she was glad the paperwork had been routed through the system so quickly) were accepted and this wouldn't go to trial. As if she would be so lucky.

"In light of recent events, it is the opinion of this Court that all evidence collected during Mr. Raoul's interrogation is inadmissible. Case dismissed."

Okay, maybe she _could_ get lucky once in a while.

Had to happen sometime, right?

- o – o -

It was raining heavily by the time Dana managed to get her client through the mob of reporters waiting outside chambers to see what the results were. Why they weren't bothering with the murder trial in the next courtroom over, Dana didn't know. The papers tomorrow, though, would have lovely pictures of her rather annoyed face as she elbowed reporters to the side so her client could make his way through relatively unaccosted. (And Mr. Raoul was going to have a good laugh at her, Dana was sure, for being protective and thinking he needed someone that much smaller than him to clear a path. Wonderful. As if her life wasn't messed up enough already.)

Dana sighed as she realized she didn't have an umbrella. "Just perfect. I love my life." She pulled her jacket off and held it over her head, preparing to run for her car. And then Scales was behind her, holding an umbrella. Dana glared suspiciously up at him. "Somehow, I think you're angling for something, Mr. Raoul," she said, sighing as she pulled her jacket back on. "It worries me."

Scales laughed. "No sense in getting wet when you don't 'ave to, right?" he asked. He smiled at her, and Dana just scowled out at the pouring rain. "'sides, I jus' wanted t' thank you for getting' me out of prison."

The public defender looked at her former client. "Really," she said, fumbling for her car keys. "That's fascinating." She pulled her keys out and unlocked her car. "Thanks for keeping me dry."

Scales smiled at her. "No' a problem, luv."

Dana waited until he'd vanished out of sight before she began beating her head against the steering wheel. "Why. Is. My. Life. So. Strange?"

There was no reply.

-o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Am I torturing Dana and Vince far too much? Drop a line and let me know!


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